Volkomen
terecht waarschuwt Darius Shahtahmasebi de wereld voor het gevaar van
het ‘buitenlandbeleid’ dat de Trump administratie voert.

Met
veel voorbeelden geeft Shahtahmasebi aan dat de VS ons op de rand van
Wereldoorlog III heeft gebracht en er niet veel voor nodig is om deze
oorlog daadwerkelijk te laten losbarsten……

Waar blijven de demonstraties tegen het terreurbeleid van de VS, die ons steeds dichter bij WOIII brengen???

Verdere
woorden overbodig, lees en oordeel zelf:

How
Donald Trump’s Policies Have Brought Us to the Brink of World War 3

February
20, 2018 at 11:55 

Written
by Darius
Shahtahmasebi

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) — On
February 7, 2018, the U.S.-led coalition in Syria conducted
air and artillery strikes against
what were believed to be pro-government forces in response to an
“unprovoked attack” launched by these pro-regime troops. Not long
after, reports began
emerging that
significant numbers of Russian personnel were included in the over
100 dead and wounded. While Russia denied this at first, eventually,
the accepted version of events on both sides was that there were some
Russian nationals who did lose their lives in Syria. These Russians
are arguably mercenaries and contractors, not official troops.

This
is not the first time the U.S.-led coalition has struck
pro-government forces in Syria. Aside from Donald Trump’s grandiose
strike on
a Syrian airbase in April of last year, U.S. forces also conducted
multiple strikes against
Syrian and Iranian-backed forces as these factions began to encircle
the American military’s presence at a base in al-Tanf.

Donald
Trump has famously relaxed the Obama-era
restrictions on
calling in airstrikes, meaning commanders on the battlefield can call
in airstrikes at their disposal without any oversight. Previously, an
airstrike could not be launched on a whim and was required to go
through certain protocols before it could be delivered. Now, even
associated forces can call in American airstrikes on the battlefield.
The most infamous example of this is when Iraqi commanders called in
a U.S. strike that ended up killing well over 200
civilians in a single bombardment.

Barely
a week after Trump’s Syria strike in April, the U.S.
military dropped a
$450,000 bomb in Afghanistan dubbed the “Mother of all bombs”
(MOAB). It soon transpired that the decision to drop the bomb was not
made by Trump himself as commander-in-chief but by Gen.
John Nicholson,
commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

It’s
time to ask yourself: Are you comfortable with commanders on the
battlefield calling in airstrikes even if those airstrikes could
potentially kill personnel on the ground belonging to another nuclear
power?

Last
Tuesday, Wisconsin Democrat Mark Pocan told
the Nation that “Congress
has never authorized force against Syrian, Turkish, Yemeni Houthi,
Russian, Iranian, or North Korean forces. Yet reportedly, a secret
administration memo may claim the legal justification to do just
that: attack Syrian, North Korean, and other forces without any
congressional authorization.” [emphasis
added]

According
to Lawfare,
a lawsuit required the government to reveal a list of documents
relating to the April Syria strike, but not the actual documents
themselves. The court-ordered directions forced the government to
reveal that the seven-page secret memo Pocan was referring to was
drafted up by administration lawyers on April 6, 2017, just before
Trump’s infamous strike. The government’s declarations revealed
that only a few of the words on one of the memo’s pages are
classified, and they are related to facts, not legalities. Still, the
administration refuses to disclose the memo to the public, claiming
the document is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.

“I
am also concerned that this legal justification may now become
precedent for additional executive unilateral military action,
including this week’s U.S. airstrikes in Syria against pro-Assad
forces or even an extremely risky ‘bloody nose’ strike against
North Korea,” Senator
Tim Kaine (D-Va) said last week.

In
early February, the Pentagon released its much anticipated
2018 Nuclear
Posture Review.
From the Washington
Post’s Katrina
vanden Heuvel’s assessment:

“The
review reaffirms the United States is ready to use nuclear weapons
first in an alarmingly wide range of scenarios. It remains ‘the
policy of the United States to retain some ambiguity regarding the
precise circumstances’ that might lead to a nuclear response. The
United States reserves the right to unleash
nuclear weapons first in ‘extreme circumstances’ to defend the
‘vital interests’ not only of the United States but also of its
‘allies and partners’ — a total of some 30 countries. ‘Extreme
circumstances,’ the review states explicitly, include ‘significant
non-nuclear attacks,’ including conventional attacks on ‘allied
or partner civilian population or infrastructure.’ The
United States also maintains a ‘portion of
its nuclear forces’ on daily alert, with the option of launching
those forces ‘promptly.’ [emphasis
added]

The
U.S. has an active stockpile of at least 4,000 nuclear weapons,
rivaled only by Russia. According
to the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR),
a “limited” regional exchange of nuclear weapons could force one
billion people to the point of starvation, and a week-long “regional”
encounter could kill far more than died during World War II.

As
Albert Einstein famously
said, “I
know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

Heuvel
correctly summarized the current nuclear strategy:

“In
sum, the United States is building a new generation of nuclear
weapons and delivery systems, will deploy more usable nuclear weapons
in ‘forward’ areas, remains committed to possible ‘first use’
of nuclear weapons even against non-nuclear attacks in defense of 30
countries, retains missiles on active alert ready to launch, is
skeptical of the possibility of any progress in arms control and is
hostile to the global movement to make nuclear weapons illegal. All
this as tensions with Russia and China rise, relations with North
Korea remain literally explosive, and the nuclear deal with Iran
stays under constant assault from the president.”

One
thing we do know is that the U.S. is openly
considering nuclear strikes in
response to cyber-attacks, which could be conducted by anyone from
lone-wolf hackers to Iran,
North Korea, Russia, or China. We also know that the Trump
administration has been weighing a “limited” strike
on North Korea for
some time now, even as North and South Korea pursue a peaceful
dialogue of their own. Even now, the U.S. continues
to position nuclear-capable
B-52 and B-2 bombers around the Korean peninsula. The B-2 is the most
advanced bomber in the United States air force, capable of dropping
the military department’s biggest bomb, which weighs in at around
14,000 kilograms.

This
is a recipe for disaster. Donald Trump isn’t bringing the troops
home and focusing on “making America great again.” According to
the Department
of Defense,
American troop deployments to the Middle East had increased 33
percent by the end of last year.

It’s
time for both sides of the political coin to confront their delusions
and face reality. Donald Trump is by far the most
hawkish, trigger-happy president to
have ever been sworn into office, which is no easy feat considering
his predecessors. His policies are leading the United States down a
dangerous path that could see a miscalculated strike on Syria,
Russia, Iran, North Korea, or even China — whether by mistake or by
design. Considering that strikes have already been underway in Syria
against the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, these
policies are likely to lead to something far more explosive down the
line.

Creative
Commons / Anti-Media / Report
a typo

=============================

PS: heb een bericht over de situatie in het Syrische Ghouta in voorbereiding. Ghouta waar de enorme westerse hysterie en hypocrisie in de reguliere media weer eens heeft toegeslagen, dit gesteund door het grootste deel van de westerse politici, terwijl men weet dat de moordenaars, verkrachters en martelbeulen van Al Qaida, al-Nusra (in feite ‘Al Qaida Syrië’) en als het even kan de White Helmets tekeer gaan tegen de bevolking……. Waar is de kritiek op terreurgroep Al Qaida gebleven?? Alle berichten over ‘de slachting’ in Ghouta komen dan ook van die terreurgroepen en van Al Qaida’s White Helmets, met door hen geregisseerde video’s en hoorspelen……. Bij deze (op 25 februari 2018): ‘Oost-Ghouta, wat je niet wordt verteld‘