Who in hell gave permission to the Americans to be the judge, jury, and executioner on this planet?
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Nuclear weapons
Iranian president: “We are against any type of weapons of mass destruction as well as nuclear weapons, and we believe that they must be destroyed around the world.”
The Trumpster: “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,”
So tell me, who is the aggressor here?
Source: Nuclear weapons ‘must be destroyed,’ says Iranian President (VIDEO)
theduran.com
Sept 19, 2017
Amid tensions caused by North Korea’s latest nuclear test, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani stated that his country is unequivocally opposed to weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons.
In an interview with Christiane Amanpour on Monday, President Rouhani discussed the possibilities that US President Donald Trump could come through on a campaign promise to shred the nuclear agreement negotiated under the Obama administration.
“Our position has been very clear and remains clear vis-a-vis nuclear weapons. We are against any type of weapons of mass destruction as well as nuclear weapons, and we believe that they must be destroyed around the world.”
He noted that an arms race was unacceptable for Iran, in any region.
Rouhani stressed,
“The position and the actions of the United States as well as other nations against North Korea have not been very positive, and I don’t think there is a military solution to this. Only diplomacy is the tool that will resolve this problem permanently.”
On September 3, North Korea announced that it had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb that could be loaded into an intercontinental ballistic missile, which became Pyongyang’s sixth nuclear test.
In light of these developments from North Korea, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted its toughest resolution against North Korea that restricted oil exports to Pyongyang, banning exports of textiles to the country, as well as restricting the country’s access to gasoline. However, North Korea has not halted its missile and nuclear program, conducting another missile test last Friday.
In that same interview with CNN, Rouhani warned that there would be a ‘high cost’ if the US exited the nuclear deal with Iran.
“Amazingly, 64 years after the end of the Korean War (1950-53), the US refuses to sign a peace treaty”
“…by not fulfilling diplomatic responsibility, the US is not complying with the UN resolution.”
Source: Why Peace is Alien to the US – Sputnik International
sputniknews.com
You’d have to laugh – if it were not so grave. The Trump administration says that it is running out of patience for a diplomatic solution to the Korea crisis.
This pseudo piousness comes from a US government that continually refuses to enter into direct negotiations with Kim Jong-un, the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
So, how can the US say it is growing weary from diplomatic effort when it hasn’t even bothered to breathe an earnest word of diplomacy – despite being urged to do so by Russia, China, and other world leaders?
© AFP 2017/ WANG Zhao
French President Emmanuel Macron in a phone call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin was the latest world leader to endorse Moscow’s appeal for negotiations over the Korea crisis.As Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, pointed out, the latest resolution concerning North Korea, voted on September 11, specifically calls on all parties, including the United States, to open negotiations and commit to finding a peaceful resolution.
Therefore, by not fulfilling diplomatic responsibility, the US is not complying with the UN resolution.
Following another ballistic missile test by North Korea on Friday in defiance of UN resolutions, President Trump’s national security advisor, General HR McMaster claimed that the US was at the end of its tether in seeking diplomacy.
“We’ve been kicking the can down the road, and we’re out of the road,” McMaster told reporters after North Korea launched a ballistic missile that overflew Japan. The distance traveled – 3,700 km – would put the US territory of Guam within a target range.
Trump’s top security advisor then added with familiar sinister intent: “For those who have been commenting on a lack of a military option, there is a military option.”
© AP Photo/ South Korea Defense Ministry
Meanwhile, the American president was touring the Anderson air force base near Washington where he again boasted of US “overwhelming” military power to wipe out North Korea.Russia and China have repeatedly called on the US and North Korea to enter into talks to settle the security crisis – a crisis that could stumble into a global catastrophe from nuclear war, as President Putin recently warned.
Moscow and Beijing gave their support to the latest UN resolution (UNSC 2375) based on the obligation demanded by the text for multilateral negotiations.
The resolution also calls for cutting oil exports to North Korea by up to 30 percent (not the blanket ban the US was seeking).
However, if the US is not willing to implement the diplomatic measures called for in the resolution, then why should China or Russia enforce the sanctions on oil trade?
Typically, Washington wants to have its cake and eat it. The US is demanding Russia and China to “take direct action” on North Korea’s economy, but Washington shows no sign of implementing its side of the bargain to enter into diplomatic communications.
Trump and his senior officials keep threatening that “all options are on the table” – meaning a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea, including with the use of nuclear weapons.
It is important to note that North Korea’s nuclear program and missile launches are all about deterrence. Kim Jong-un reiterated after the latest ballistic test that Pyongyang was seeking military “equilibrium” with the US in order to deter it from carrying out a pre-emptive attack.
Apart from Russia, China, Germany, and France, among others, calling for diplomatic talks, many reasonable voices within the US are also urging the same.
© AP Photo/ Andy Wong
Former US President Jimmy Carter, who has visited North Korea on three occasions, has forthrightly stated that Washington must commit to peace and enter into talks with Pyongyang.The US-based National Campaign to End the Korean War is also advocating direct negotiations for a peaceful resolution. The organization says the key to successful diplomacy is for the US to sign a formal peace treaty with North Korea.
Amazingly, 64 years after the end of the Korean War (1950-53), the US refuses to sign a peace treaty. Technically, the US is still at war with North Korea, having only ever observed a truce to the conflict. With continuous military maneuvers by the US around the Korean Peninsula, this observation of truce is thinly veiled.
From the North Korean point of view, the US could resume a full-scale war at any time. Military drills and gung-ho rhetoric about “decapitation strikes” and “all options” are cause for deep alarm in North Korea, especially given the enormous suffering that it was subjected to by the US during the 1950-53 war.
If Washington were serious about seeking a diplomatic solution in Korea then it would confirm that purported aspiration by signing a long-overdue peace treaty with North Korea. Then, as Russia and China have urged, the parties should engage in comprehensive talks on security concerns.
But this is the crux of the entire matter. Washington does not want peace in Korea.
Tensions, conflict and the shadow of war are essential to US presence in Asia-Pacific. That allows the US to project North Korea as a “bogeyman threat” to American allies in South Korea and Japan, which, in turn, facilitates the massive selling of weapons vital to the US economy.
Just last week, the US sold more of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missiles to South Korea, even though South Korean President Moon Jae-in previously said he was opposed to installing these weapons. Japan is also moving to purchase more US-made Aegis anti-missile systems.
Moreover, the escalation of US military forces in Asia-Pacific to allegedly “counter the North Korea threat” provides Washington a convenient cover to expand its strategic reach over China and Russia – the two nations which the Pentagon repeatedly labels as its main global adversaries.
China and Russia have expressed their objection to the US missile systems in Asia-Pacific, saying that they disturb the strategic balance.
Nevertheless, the US is proceeding to build up its forces because it is using the North Korea crisis as a politically acceptable stalking horse.
© AP Photo/ Andy Wong
The stark reality is that the US rulers and their military-driven economy do not want peace in Korea. Hence, they refuse to sign a peace treaty or give diplomacy any chance. Conflict with North Korea is simply vital for US corporate capitalism, as well as allowing the US to project its military power over perceived rivals in Russia and China.
The truly abominable issue here is that world peace is being jeopardized in order to satisfy the selfish strategic interest of American rulers. International law, UN resolutions, appeals to reason and diplomacy are being outrageously snubbed by a rogue regime in Washington itching for war.
And then Washington has the audacity to claim its patience for diplomacy is running out. The only thing running out is the world’s tolerance for such American belligerence and arrogance.
This is not just about Korea and Asia-Pacific. The Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, NATO’s expansion in Europe, Ukraine and the Balkans. Venezuela, Cuba and Latin America. Conflicts in every part of the globe, past, and present are correlated with America’s addiction to war. Because peace is anathema to US rulers.
Council of EU Expands North Korea Sanctions List After Latest Missile Launch
Japan, S Korea, US Agree to Enhance Cooperation After North’s Missile Launch
US Threats to Stop Trade With China Over North Korea Nothing But ‘Blackmail’
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Sputnik.
North Korea is claiming that they successfully detonated their first hydrogen bomb. You’d think that the idea that they might have an H bomb would be somewhat alarming to those of us who are here on the West coast, but we went out on the street and it seems like if you ask people a question in a cheerful enough way, we will offer congratulations for just about anything.
A columnist says the US is looking to destroy the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers to undermine the Iranian economy.
Source: PressTV-‘US trying to destroy Iran nuclear deal’
Sep 2, 2017
PressTv User
The US ambassador to the UN has called for inspection of the Iranian military sites to verify Tehran’s compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has underlined that there is no need for such monitoring.
To discuss the issue, Press TV has interviewed Jim W. Dean, managing editor and columnist of Veterans Today from Atlanta, and Jim Walsh, research associate with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from Boston.
Jim Dean said the US authorities are trying to find a way out of the 2015 nuclear agreement in a bid to impose more sanctions on Iran and undermine its economy.
“The US wants to destroy and recoil those deals by being able to put banking sanctions in place which will kill a lot of financing, because they don’t want Iran to become an economic power,” the analyst said on Friday night.
He also said the US government is upset that Iran is absorbing foreign investments in the face of US-imposed sanctions.
“Israel and the US don’t want Iran to become a big economic power and neither do the Persian Gulf states, neither do Israel and many of the Arab states,” Dean added.
US President Donald “Trump is going to do everything he can to bust the Iran deal by finding Iran in noncompliance,” he noted.
However, he emphasized that “Iran is not about to do anything to risk ruining the nuclear deal and to put [foreign] investments at risk.”
The nuclear deal was reached between Iran and the P5+1 countries — namely the US, Russia, China, France, Britain, and Germany — in July 2015 and took effect in January 2016. Unlike America, other signatories to the JCPOA have stood by the accord, which called on Iran to cap on its nuclear activities in return for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions.
Jim Walsh, the other contributor on the panel, said US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, is “acting on her own” to push forward her own position because she may have “larger ambitions” to become next secretary of state after Rex Tillerson.
“If the US pulls out of the deal, the US would be blamed for that and then Iran would have lots of strategic choices and options,” the researcher warned.
Elsewhere, he said, “Iran is playing wisely,” because the Iranians continue to stay committed to the nuclear agreement and they could have their relationship with Europe, China and Russia.
On March 21, 2017, European Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini strongly supported the nuclear deal, warning the Trump administration that renegotiation of the July 2015 agreement is not possible.
Dear hypocritical USA, in the light of this you surely must be planning an invasion of Ukraine, or at least inflict crippling sanctions to this rogue government created by you.
Source: Info of Ukraine Selling Rocket Engines to N Korea ‘Sounds Reasonable’ – Sputnik International
sputniknews.com
Aug 19, 2017
The United States has intelligence that the engines that power North Korean ballistic missiles allegedly came from Ukraine. In an interview with Sputnik, Polish journalist Janusz Niedzwiedzki said that US media reports to this effect “sound quite reasonable.”
“Since Maidan, Ukraine’s economy has been in tatters and corruption is rampant like nowhere else in the other post-Soviet states or the EU. Small wonder that some people working at Ukraine’s rocket engine enterprises could have sold the know-how to the North Koreans. I don’t think the Ukrainian government knew about this, though,” Janusz Niedzwiedzki told Sputnik Poland.
He said he was worried by the prospect of Ukraine getting lethal weapons from the US, which he fears would mean that Washington is trying to stoke up the armed conflict in Donbass.
© REUTERS/ Toru Hanai
“If President Trump decides to supply such weapons to Kiev, it could then use this as a factor in talks with Russia about Ukraine’s future. This could lead to a new escalation of the conflict,” Janusz Niedzwiedzki added.Experts believe that if Pyongyang obtains advanced rocket engine technology from Ukraine’s Yuzhmash plant this would give a boost to the country’s missile program. However, North Korea has been working on its own such rocket technologies and has achieved impressive results in this area.
The New York Times earlier cited a team of US experts as saying that North Korea could have obtained modified RD-250 high-performance liquid-propellant engines for its ballistic missiles in Ukraine.
Despite Kiev’s quick denial that these engines are actually produced in Ukraine, Washington is absolutely convinced that Pyongyang purchased their engines from Ukraine.
Russian pranksters Lexus and Vovan later got in touch with the director of the Yuzhmash plant posing as the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council.
During the exchange the unsuspecting Yuzhmash director admitted that their rocket engines might have found their way to North Korea via China.
“We don’t know for sure if [Yuzhmash technology] actually got to North Korea, but if it did, this would have clearly sped up the country’s development of means of delivery of nuclear warheads,” independent military expert Vladimir Novikov said during a Moscow-Beijing video link organized by Russia Segodnya news agency.
He added that if true, this technology transfer could have been a multi-stage operation.
“If [Ukraine] did sell [this know-how], this could have been done via third and fourth countries. If this is what really happened, it will help the North to develop medium- and long-range ballistic missiles and even intercontinental ones capable of flying up to 11,000 kilometers [6,800 miles] away,” Novikov continued.
He also said that it wouldn’t take long for North Korean specialists to adapt this new know-how “after decades of successful work on their missile and nuclear program.”
Yang Danzhi, the assistant director the Chinese Social Sciences Academy’s Regional Security Center, said that Pyongyang has long been at work honing its missile technology.
© AP Photo/ South Korea Defense Ministry
“There has been much talk going on about missile technology. [The North Koreans] have used foreign know-how, but they keep improving their own technology and they are making good progress too,” Yang said.He also mentioned numerous channels now existing in the world which countries can use to obtain technology.
“What is really important here is that North Korea has come a long way in this area and has accumulated a wealth of its own technological solutions. That’s why, sooner or later, they were bound to make a breakthrough and this is exactly what we can see happening now,” Yang Danzhi concluded.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko said that if the reports about rocket engine technology transfers to North Korea are confirmed, this would “mean a catastrophe for Ukraine.”
Tensions around Pyongyang’s missile program have flared up in the recent weeks, following the adoption of the UN Security Council sanctions, which led to North Korea trading threats and warnings with the United States.
Most notably, Pyongyang said it might consider an attack on the area near the US territory of Guam in the Western Pacific.
Iran Threatens to Send Warships to Atlantic and Ramp Up Nuclear Activities if US Continues Sanctions
“The U.S. has shown that it is neither a good partner nor a trustable negotiator,” Rouhani added. “Those who are trying to go back to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past hallucinations. They deprive themselves of the advantages of peace.”
Source: Iran Threatens to Send Warships to Atlantic and Ramp Up Nuclear Activities if US Continues Sanctions
Amid Americans’ concerns that North Korea threatened to launch a missile at Guam, Iran is planning on building up a flotilla of warships in the Atlantic Ocean, while Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani has threatened to revitalize the country’s nuclear program if the U.S. continues “threats and sanctions.”
If Washington continues with “threats and sanctions” against Iran, Tehran could easily ramp up its nuclear activities Rouhani said in Iranian Parliament, AP reported.
In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced (nuclear) level than at the beginning of the negotiations.
“The U.S. has shown that it is neither a good partner nor a trustable negotiator,” Rouhani added. “Those who are trying to go back to the language of threats and sanctions are prisoners of their past hallucinations. They deprive themselves of the advantages of peace.”
Iranian lawmakers reportedly shouted “death to America” as they passed the bill to increase military spending.
The legislation also imposes sanctions on U.S. military officials who are in the region.
Meanwhile, after the announcement of a massive $500 million investment in war spending, Iran has planned to send flotilla of warships to the Atlantic Ocean in response to the U.S. proposed sanctions against the country.
“No military official in the world thought that we can go around Africa to the Atlantic Ocean through the Suez Canal but we did it as we had declared that we would go to the Atlantic and its Western waters,” Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said.
This comes amid previous weeks of several tense interplays where Iranian military ships have carried out a series of dangerous drills near U.S. ships.
Just last Monday U.S. military officials reported another “unsafe” encounter with an Iranian drone that was following a U.S. carrier in the Persian Gulf that allegedly came close enough to an American F-18 jet to risk the pilot’s life.
In early August, U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea passed by the U.S. Congress.
Iran has maintained the new U.S. sanctions amount to a “hostile” breach of the 2015 nuclear deal.
U.S. President Donald Trump has stated several times that the Iran deal was a “bad deal” and continues looking into ways to repeal the deal.
Meanwhile, Iran has just threatened Trump saying they will “abandon its nuclear agreement with world powers within hours” if the United States imposes any more new sanctions, Reuters reported.
“If America wants to go back to the experience (of imposing sanctions), Iran would certainly return in a short time — not a week or a month but within hours — to conditions more advanced than before the start of negotiations,” Rouhani told a session of parliament broadcast live on state television.
“The world has clearly seen that under Trump, America has ignored international agreements and, in addition to undermining the (nuclear deal), has broken its word on the Paris agreement and the Cuba accord…and that the United States is not a good partner or a reliable negotiator,” Rouhani added.
Another U.S. president and just more geopolitical wars mounting up. Nothing ever seems to change even though all presidents seem to campaign on ending wars.
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post and is Director of Content for Coinivore. Follow Aaron at Twitter and Steemit.
