Iran categorically rejects US ’unfounded claim’ on tanker attacks

Source

http://www.presstv.com

Thu Jun 13, 2019

This photo shows fire and smoke billowing from Norwegian-owned Front Altair tanker said to have been attacked in the waters of the Sea of Oman on June 13, 2019. (Photo by ISNA)

Iran has rejected as “unfounded” US claims that it is responsible for the recent attacks on two oil tankers in the Sea of Oman, warning of “another Iranophobic campaign” being waged by Washington and its allies.

“The inflammatory remarks by the US representative against Iran at the UN Security Council on 13 June 2019 was another Iranophobic campaign. Iran categorically rejects the US’ unfounded claim with regard to 13 June oil tanker incidentsand condemns it in the strongest possible terms,” said the Iranian mission to the UN in a statement on Thursday.

“Neither fabrications and disinformation campaigns nor shamelessly blaming others can change the realities. The US and its regional allies must stop warmongering and put an end to mischievous plots as well as false flag operations in the region. Warning, once again, about all of the US coercion, intimidation, and malign behavior, Iran expresses concern over suspicious incidents for the oil tankers that occurred today,” the statement added.

PressTV-US blames Iran for tanker attacks in Sea of Oman

The Trump administration has blamed Iran for attacks on two oil tankers in the Sea of Oman without providing any evidence to back up the accusation.

On Thursday morning, Iranian rescuers rushed to the assistance of the two oil tankers in the Sea of Oman, transferring all of their 44 crew members to Iran’s southern shores.

Referring to Washington’s sanctions against Tehran following the former’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement with world powers, the statement said, “The US economic war and terrorism against the Iranian people as well as its massive military presence in the region have been and continue to be the main sources of insecurity and instability in the wider Persian Gulf region and the most significant threat to its peace and security.”

The statement also called on “the international community to live up to its responsibilities in preventing the reckless and dangerous policies and practices of the US and its regional allies in heightening the tensions in the region.”

It added that the recent developments in the region “serve as proof of the urgency” of engaging in “dialogue based on mutual respect” between  “all regional countries… based on mutual respect, inclusivity and basic principles of international law.”

“Reiterating its longstanding position on the need for promoting peace and security in the broader Persian Gulf region, the Islamic Republic of Iran stands ready to play an active and constructive role in ensuring the security of strategic maritime passages as well as promoting peace, stability and security in the region,” the statement said in conclusion.

‘B Team turning to sabotage diplomacy’

In a series of tweets on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US allegations against Iran over the attacks on oil tankers in the Sea of Oman were part of “sabotage diplomacy” adopted by the “B Team,” which he uses to refer to US National Security Adviser John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Javad Zarif
✔@JZarif

That the US immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran—w/o a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence—only makes it abundantly clear that the #B_Team is moving to a #PlanB: Sabotage diplomacy—including by @AbeShinzo—and cover up its #EconomicTerrorism against Iran.

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5:11 PM – Jun 13, 2019

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Javad Zarif
✔@JZarif

 · Jun 13, 2019

That the US immediately jumped to make allegations against Iran—w/o a shred of factual or circumstantial evidence—only makes it abundantly clear that the #B_Team is moving to a #PlanB: Sabotage diplomacy—including by @AbeShinzo—and cover up its #EconomicTerrorism against Iran.

Javad Zarif
✔@JZarif

I warned of exactly this scenario a few months ago, not because I’m clairvoyant, but because I recognize where the #B_Team is coming from.

1,791

5:12 PM – Jun 13, 2019

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Propaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems

“Because the trouble with democracy, it turns out, is that human minds are very hackable, as long as you’ve got the resources. Wealthy and powerful people do have the resources, which means that it’s very possible for wealthy and powerful people to manipulate the masses into voting in a way that consistently benefits the wealthy and powerful. This is why billionaires and narrative control consistently go hand-in-hand.”

Propaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems

caitlinjohnstone.com

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

June 13, 2019

A new article by Forbes reports that the CEO of Crowdstrike, the extremely shady cybersecurity corporation which was foundational in the construction of the official CIA/CNN Russian hacking narrative, is now a billionaire.

George Kurtz ascended to the billionaire rankings on the back of soaring stocks immediately after the company went public, carried no doubt on the winds of the international fame it gained from its central protagonistic role in the most well-known hacking news story of all time. A loyal servant of empire well-rewarded.

Never mind that US government insiders like Hillary Clinton had been prepping for escalations against Russia well in advance of the 2016 elections, and that their preexisting agendas to shove a geostrategic obstacle off the world stage benefitted from the hacking narrative as much as George Kurtz did.

Never mind that Crowdstrike is tied to the NATO narrative management firm known as the Atlantic Council, which receives funding from the US government, the EU, NATO, Gulf states and powerful international oligarchs. Never mind either that Crowdstrike was financed with a whopping $100 million from Google, which has had a cozy relationship with US intelligence agencies since its very inception.

Never mind that to this day the DNC servers have not been examined by the FBI, nor indeed were they examined by the Special Counsel of Robert “Iraq has WMD” Mueller, preferring instead to go with the analyses of this extremely shady outfit with extensive and well-documented ties with the oligarchic leaders of the US-centralized empire. Also never mind that the Crowdstrike analyst who led forensics on those DNC servers had in fact worked for and was promoted by Robert Mueller while the two were in the FBI.

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz

The CEO of the Atlantic Council-tied Crowdstrike, which formed the foundation of the official CIA/CNN Russian hacking narrative, is now a billionaire. I’m telling you, the real underlying currency of this world is narrative and the ability to control it.https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2019/06/12/as-crowdstrike-shares-soar-on-its-ipo-day-ceo-george-kurtz-joins-the-billionaire-ranks/ …

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4:02 PM – Jun 12, 2019

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As Crowdstrike Shares Soar On Its IPO Day, CEO George Kurtz Joins The Billionaire Ranks

Kurtz, who cofounded the security software firm, previously worked as worldwide technology chief at security firm McAfee.

forbes.com

274 people are talking about this

As I never tire of saying, the real underlying currency in our world is not gold, nor bureaucratic fiat, nor even raw military might. The real underlying currency of our world is narrative, and the ability to control it.

As soon as you really grok this dynamic, you start noticing it everywhere. George Kurtz is one clear example today of narrative control’s central role in the maintenance and expansion of existing power structures, as well as an illustration of how the empire is wired to reward those who advance pro-empire narratives and punish those who damage them; just compare how he’s doing to how Julian Assange is doing, for example.

But you see examples pop up every day:

• The US State Department just got busted using a $1.5 million troll farm to manipulate public discourse on social media about Iran.
• Video footage has just surfaced of the OPCW Director-General admitting that the OPCW did indeed deliberately omit any mention in its official findings of a report from its own investigation which contradicts the establishment narrative about a chemical strike in Douma, Syria, an admission which answers controversial questions asked by critics of western imperialism like myself, and which the mainstream media have not so much as touched.
• Mintpress News broke a story the other day about a new narrative management operation known as “The Trust Project”, a coordinated campaign by establishment-friendly mass media outlets for “gaming search-engine and social-media algorithms in collusion with major tech companies like Google and Twitter.”
• In a new interview with The Canary, UN Special Rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer explicitly named the mass media as largely responsible for Assange’s psychological torture, excoriating them for the way that they “have shown a remarkable lack of critical independence and have contributed significantly to spreading abusive and deliberately distorted narratives about Mr. Assange.”
• In a new essay called “Freeing Julian Assange“, journalist Suzie Dawson reports that “Countless articles appear to have been obliterated from the internet” about Assange and WikiLeaks, amounting to some 90 percent of the links Dawson examined which were shared in tweets by or about WikiLeaks and Assange since 2010.
• I just finished reading this excellent Swiss Propaganda Research essay about the little-known fact that “most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.”

Any one of these could have a full-length Caitlin Johnstone essay written about it. I write about this stuff for a living, and even I don’t have the time or energy to write full articles about every single narrative control tool that the US-centralized empire has been implementing into its arsenal. There are too damn many of them emerging too damn fast because they’re just that damn crucial for maintaining existing power structures.

Because whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

Power used to be much easier to identify in our society: just look for the fellow with the sparkly hat made of gold sitting in a really big chair and bossing everyone around. As our society advanced philosophically, however, people began to tire of having every aspect of their society determined by some schmuck in a golden hat and started fighting for ideals called “freedom” and “democracy” in their respective nations. And, as far as our parents and teachers have taught us, freedom and democracy are exactly what we have now.

Except that’s all crap. Freedom and democracy only exist within the western empire to the extent that it keeps up appearances. Because the trouble with democracy, it turns out, is that human minds are very hackable, as long as you’ve got the resources. Wealthy and powerful people do have the resources, which means that it’s very possible for wealthy and powerful people to manipulate the masses into voting in a way that consistently benefits the wealthy and powerful. This is why billionaires and narrative control consistently go hand-in-hand.

This dynamic has allowed for western power structures to operate in a way that western democracy was explicitly designed to prevent: for the benefit of the powerful instead of for the benefit of the voting populace. So now we’ve got people in so-called liberal democracies voting to maintain governments which advance wars which don’t benefit them, to advance intrusive surveillance and police state policies which oppress them, to advance austerity policies which harm them, to advance labor policies which exploit them, and to maintain ecocidal environmental policies which threaten the very survival of our species. All because the wealthy and powerful are able to use their wealth and power to manipulate the way people think and vote.

Malcolm Pryce@exogamist

I remember in the run-up to the Iraq War a friend I had known all my life suddenly said to me, ‘We must do something about this monster in Iraq.’ I said, ‘When did you first think that?’ He answered honestly, ‘A month ago’. #Propaganda @medialens

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2:00 AM – Apr 12, 2018

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This is why I pay far more attention in my work to narrative control than to politics. Politics is downstream from narrative control, which is why the 2020 US presidential race is already a contest to see what level of Democratic corporatist warmonger will be running against the incumbent Republican corporatist warmonger. The narrative-controlling class does its level best to hide the fact that anything’s fundamentally wrong with the system, then when people notice it’s deeply broken they encourage them to use completely impotent tools to fix it. “Don’t like how things are run? Here, vote for our other puppet!”

The root of all our problems right now is the fact that human minds are very hackable with enough resources, combined with the fact that war, oppression, exploitation and ecocide are highly profitable. This dynamic has caused human collective consciousness to generally dead-end into a kind of propagandized, zombified state in which all our knowledge and all our thinking moves in alignment with the agendas of existing power structures. It’s much easier to continue believing the official narratives than to sort through everything you’ve been told about your society, your nation and your world since grade school and work out what’s true and what’s false. Many don’t have the time. Many more don’t have the courage.

We will remain in this collective dead-end, hurtling toward either Orwellian dystopia or extinction via climate collapse or nuclear armageddon, until we find a way out of it. It won’t come from the tools our rulers have given us, and it won’t come from repeating any of the old patterns which got us here. In order to escape from the increasingly adept narrative control matrix that is being built around our collective mind by the powerful, we’re going to have to change our relationship with narrative altogether. We will either pass this great test or we will fail it, and we absolutely have the freedom to go either way.

Russian Aggression Comes From Media Racism

Russian Aggression Comes From Media Racism

http://www.strategic-culture.org

Tim Kirby

June 10, 2019

As an American wouldn’t you want to live in a country with a powerful military that can prevent any invasion and backs up your foreign policy with some muscle? Wouldn’t you want to make sure that America remains a cohesive nation that shuts down any attempts at succession and asserts a firm military, governmental and cultural presence all over its own territory? As an American wouldn’t you feel that America has the right to try to get back regions that it controlled for generations filled with Americans cut off from the bulk of the US if need be? And finally wouldn’t you think that it is fine for the USA to resist economic, military and cultural pressure from an aggressive foreign power while developing itself?

Unless you are some sort of self-hating SJW zealot then all of the above should seem perfectly reasonable to you… because it is. It is reasonable not just for America but for any great human civilization on our planet. So the question is why is it that when Russians follow these same normal patterns of behavior they are labeled as “aggression” and somehow immediately become horrible and unacceptable.

The Russian aggression trope has come up again as CBS brutally shoehorned the expression into the title of one of their videos. In the piece, Senator Joe Manchin comments on a few different topics but the main one was his tour of Arctic nations and the climate issues related to them. All he had to say about Russia is that they are really putting their chips down on the Arctic and have invested massive amounts of money and resources into the region.

The topic of Russia came up after the presenter asked Mr. Manchin a bizarre conspiracy theory site style question related to Russians doing major nuclear tests in the Arctic for no clear reason other than Russians do bad things by default according to CBS’s editorial line. The presenter did not state where she got this nugget of fake news from, she just boldly asserted they are nuking snow and polar bears as Russians are known to do.

Thankfully Mr. Manchin bluntly said “no” ignoring this mad question to immediately go on to lay out his opinion that the US could be really falling behind in terms of the Arctic due to the Russian surge in the great white north and that the US should be aware of this and try to catch up. He feels that America needs to catch up, overtake, or offset the Russians in the Arctic.

This is a totally reasonable respectable and patriotic stance to have, which is probably why CBS had to force “aggression” into the title of the video. If all American politicians had the same rational view of competition between nations that Mr. Manchin does, then the pointless tension between the US and Russia would probably be very nominal right now.

Perhaps it is part of human nature to create lots of double standards in favor of one’s own group. Every political movement and every nation seems to forgive the sins of its own guys when they do things “for the greater good” and demonizes anyone who tries to stop them. Our soldiers are heroes, their soldiers are monsters, our way of life is good for everyone, their way of life is a threat to the world, etc. This aspect of tribal mentality is part of who we are and something we need to be much more mindful of in our 21st-century nuclear standoff because the worst that could happen from this type of rhetoric is no longer just some kind of pogrom but total nuclear annihilation.

If the Pro-Diversity machine in the media would wake up to the fact that the geopolitical chessboard, is, was and always will be “diverse” and that all players have similar goals with similar means that would really help the entire world move forward and keep us all very far away from the potential of a WWIII nuclear scenario. This “good guy vs. bad guy” racist narrative that Russia is on the bad end is propping up an ultimately artificial conflict with the US. It is time to acknowledge the reality that there are numerous cultures on Earth that want to be powerful and prosperous and just because they look different from us doesn’t make them any more or less capable of doing great evil.

Why is the US always ‘stumbling’ or ‘sliding’ into war? How the media misleads with language

“Talk of freedom, democracy and human rights are just a convenient cover. Washington is never at risk, for example, of stumbling into war with Saudi Arabia, despite Riyadh’s laundry list of crimes against humanity.”

Source

15 May, 2019 

© Getty Images North America / Ramin Talaie

The way the mainstream media tells it, the United States never, ever ends up embroiled in wars and military conflicts on purpose — only ever by mistake, or as a result of things like ‘bad planning’ or ‘strategic missteps’.

Very often when media coverage of war is analysed, there is a focus on how hawkish pundits cheerlead for conflict and journalists parrot official narratives while dissenting voices are drowned out. Mainstream networks, for example, have been heavily criticized by media watchdogs for almost exclusively inviting pro-war guests and ex-military hawks onto their news shows to convince Americans that war is the only reasonable course of action, while refusing to let anti-war commentators get a look in.

But there is another more subtle and unnoticeable way that the media deceives us. Even when they are not outright cheerleading for military action (as was the case in the lead up to the Iraq War), the language they use to describe events is designed to absolve Washington of blame.

Next time you read the news, notice how the US is always “stumbling into” war, or “drifting into” war or “sliding into” war — or even “sleepwalking into” war. To “stumble into” war seems to be a firm favorite among headline writers. The US has “stumbled” into war in Iraq and Syria and has been, at one time or another, at risk of “stumbling” into war with Russia, North Korea and most recently Iran.

According to these headlines, the US has also been “dragged into” (CNN) and “sucked into” (NI) war in Syria and Afghanistan, twice (NI, The Times). In recent weeks, the Trump administration has been “sliding into” (AP) a potential “accidental” war with Iran — and back in 2017, it was “dragged into” (FP) the disastrous Yemen conflict.

The examples of the US stumbling, blundering and bumbling its way into wars are endless — and it does raise a question that no one ever seems to ask: If it’s so easy to trip and fall into massive never-ending wars, why isn’t it happening to everyone else? Is Washington just especially clumsy?

With this narrative of the bumbling superpower, agency is always removed from the architects of war. Instead of enthusiastically banging the drums for war, we’re told the White House is always ‘reluctant’ to deploy its military, but is ‘forced’ into it . Then, once the war is in full-swing, when things are not panning out exactly as planned, the US can become the sacrificial hero, propelled into a deadly conflict not of its own making.

A recent headline in the Miami Herald framed recent US actions on Venezuela as the US being “pushed to act.” Pushed by who? The Trump administration voluntarily helped organize and instigate the attempted coups that worsened the country’s political crisis and proudly imposed the economic sanctions which have led directly to thousands of premature deaths. There was no “pushing” involved.

In April, Foreign Policy magazine even had Venezuela’s self-declared interim president Juan Guaido “stumbling toward a coup.” How do you stumble into a military coup? Surely that’s the kind of thing that requires careful, deliberate planning and execution? The Washington Post had Trump “fumbling”an uprising in Caracas, too.

ALSO ON RT.COMUS media’s love affair with war: Major outlets showed zero opposition to Syria strikes

It’s not just media pundits and journalists who employ this kind of misleading language, either. British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this week that a US war with Iran could happen“by accident.” Did Hunt take a vacation from reality and miss US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton ramping up war rhetoric against Iran for months? Maybe Trump abandoned the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by accident and sent an aircraft carrier and bomber task force into the Persian Gulf last week to “send a message” to Iran by mistake.

Such framing obscures basic facts about Washington’s motives and predilection toward military conflict over diplomacy. Washington doesn’t get into wars by mistake. Unless a country is directly attacked, threatened or occupied, wars are quite easy to avoid getting into if you really don’t want to be in them  — but the hawks in Washington, no matter how much they pretend to not want war, are always itching for more and they will stop at nothing to get what they want, even if that means fabricating evidence (as in Iraq) or pulling off false flag attacks to use as convenient pretexts for the US to ‘respond’ to.

Please stop publishing pieces declaring the US is “stumbling” or “drifting” into a war. The US goes to war because it’s by design, not by accident. If it’s not painfully clear the intentions are to goad Iran into an armed conflict, you haven’t been paying attention.

— Donté Stallworth (@DonteStallworth) May 15, 2019

US military actions are designed specifically to provoke the conflicts that they believe will be of benefit to their overall geopolitical strategy. Talk of freedom, democracy and human rights are just a convenient cover. Washington is never at risk, for example, of stumbling into war with Saudi Arabia, despite Riyadh’s laundry list of crimes against humanity.

Whether this propagandistic language is always employed in a totally conscious way or not, it’s difficult to tell. Either way, it’s a psychological trick which frames the most powerful, military-minded and trigger-happy country in the world as some kind of innocent victim of events beyond its control.

Danielle Ryan

Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer based in Dublin.

 Follow her on Twitter @DanielleRyanJ

Indispensable Nation Colludes with Land of Chosen People to Blame Wrong Country for State Sponsored Terror

Source link

humansarefree.com

By Makia Freeman, Guest writer

April 11, 2019

We live in absurd political climate these days, a reflection of all the fakery that surrounds us, living as we all do in a Matrix of illusion. 

Occasionally the fakery hits a point where it’s hard not to have some kind of reaction, be it anger, groans of despair or uncontrollable fits of laughter. I prefer the latter as a way to deal with the insanity of the ‘official’ version of reality promulgated by the Establishment.

Russia Collusion or Israeli Collusion?

For years the Mainstream Media (MSM) persisted in disseminating its fake news item of the decade, the admitted “nothing burger” of Russian collusion. Many alternative news reporters and aware citizens saw right through the fakery, however it took some until the Mueller Report was released to get the definitive evidence that there never has been any definitive evidence.

The Russian collusion joke has served important purposes for the NWO manipulators, i.e. drumming up fear and hatred of Russia (to stoke the embers for a future US-led war against Eurasia), exert control over Trump (especially to prevent him from improving US-Russia relations) and to distract the public with a matter of no importance.

Israeli Collusion Blatant and Out-of-Control

Meanwhile, the real collusion that no one is permitted to discuss is Israeli collusion. The ideology of political correctness has shut down a lot of free speech, and at the top of the pyramid is Zionism – ‘that which cannot be criticized.’

Public figures of all shapes and sizes are routinely whacked down when they question the policies and actions of the Israeli government, including its ongoing murder of Palestinians and theft of their land.

In Trump, Israel has found a US President that will do just about anything for them (and that is saying something). Israeli collusion is so overwhelming and widespread that it is practically woven into the fabric of US politics, and it’s pretty much identical in the UK, Australia, Canada and elsewhere.

The power of the Zionists is to hide their power, as Gilad Atzmon once said. They have hidden their power so well that many people can’t even see it, and if they do, they’re too afraid to highlight it for fear of being called ‘anti-semitic’ or losing their job / popularity.

In Unprecedented Move, USG Defines IRGC as Terrorist Organization

In part due to the undue Israeli influence and control of the USG (US Government), the Trump administration ever since it came to power has targeted Iran with all sorts of threats and sanctions. On Monday April 8th 2019, in an unprecedented move, the USG declared and designated the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) a foreign terrorist organization, the first time that the USG has classified an agency or military body of another nation / government as a terrorist organization.

This puts the IRGC, a military organization of 125,000 with its own army, navy and air force, with vast economic resources and which answers only to Iran’s supreme leader, on par with Al Qaeda and ISIS. The IRGC’s mission is to protect the structure of the Islamic Republic itself, including against coups, so you can imagine how prepared they would be for the shenanigans of the USG.

The IRCG has 2 additional small branches: one is the missile force which controls Iran’s medium range missiles; the other is the Quds Force, a brigade size unit with some 4,000 men trained for special operations abroad.

Why Did the US Designate IRGC Like This?

Why did Trump’s Zionist and neocon administration decide to classify a branch of a foreign nation’s government/military as terrorists? This article on MoonOfAlabama.org offers some reasons:

“In 2007 the U.S. Treasury already designated the Quds Force for its “support of terrorism”. It also sanctioned several enterprises that are connected to the IRGC. It is totally unclear what the designation of the IRCG as a whole is supposed to achieve. It could be a symbolic move or, as some assume, a step towards a war on Iran:

“Former Under-Secretary of State and lead Iran negotiator, Wendy Sherman, said she worried about implications for U.S. forces.

“One might even suggest, since it’s hard to see why this is in our interest, if the president isn’t looking for a basis for a conflict,” said Sherman, who is director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. “The IRGC is already fully sanctioned and this escalation absolutely endangers our troops in the region.”

Mohammad al Shabani lists additional reasons:

Mohammad Ali Shabani @mashabani – 14:36 utc – 8 Apr 2019
THREAD. Usual suspects pushed Trump to designate #IRGC as FTO. Why?
– Constrain Trump’s deal-making instincts
– Box in next US president on Iran (Dems say will rejoin JCPOA)
– Force Lebanon/Iraq into picking between Iran/US
– Force Europe to further cut whatever meager outreach
– provoke Iran to scrap JCPOA
– and, ideally, initiate military confrontation”

Iranian State Sponsored Terrorism or Saudi Arabian State Sponsored Terrorism?

Calling Iran the biggest state sponsor of terrorism is totally backwards, like many things in this world. Time and time again, Iran has actively fought against the extreme Islamic terrorists, jihadis, takfiris and Salafists which comprise organizations like Al Qaeda, ISIS, Al Nusra and more. ISIS even attacked Tehran, the capital of Iran, at one point.

While demonizing Iran, Trump continues to cosy with Saudi Arabia, the true fountainhead of Islamic terrorism via its extensive worldwide system of madrasses (training schools). Trump is even trying to give the Saudis (who have formed an unholy alliance with Israel) nuclear technology!

Saudi Arabia is run by barbaric, head-chopping “royals” who murder journalists at home and abroad (e.g. Khashoggi who was assassinated inside an embassy in Turkey). Saudi Arabia is truly the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, but don’t expect the USG or MSM to admit it.

The Jewish-only State for the ‘Chosen People’

Meanwhile, Israel passed a law in July 2018 that states that Israel “is the nation-state of the Jewish people.” This is despite the fact they have millions of Arab citizens! If that’s not blatant apartheid, racism and ethnocracy (rule by race/religion) then I don’t know what is.

Some fundamentalist Jews believe they are the ‘chosen people’ so for them Israel is being rebranded as the Jewish-only state of the chosen people. It goes without saying that this throws egalitarianism, human rights, democracy or equality under the bus.

The ‘Exceptional’ and ‘Indispensable’ Nation

Then we have the gold ole USA which previous presidents and leaders have called the ‘exceptional’ and ‘indispensable’ nation, as though life on Earth couldn’t exist without the United States.

Yes, the US started off with a bang with its fantastic Declaration of Independence and impressive Bill of Rights, but through constant war, conquest, coups, installation of puppet dictators, false flags and rabid imperialism, it long ago turned from the good guy to the global bully. The USA is now seen as the primary force for evil by billions of people in many, many countries across the globe.

So we have the ‘Exceptional’ and ‘Indispensable Nation’ engaging in ‘Collusion’ with the Racist Apartheid Land of the ‘Chosen People’ to blame the wrong country for ‘State Sponsor of Terror’ while protecting the real biggest ‘State Sponsor of Terror.’ Funny world we live in.

Iran puts US forces in West Asia region on its terror blacklist

Source link

http://www.presstv.com

Mon Apr 8, 2019

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has slammed the US government as “supporter of terrorism,” designating American forces in West Asia, known as the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), as a “terrorist organization.”

In a statement on Monday, the Iranian top security council said the designation came as a “reciprocal measure” against US President Donald Trump’s “illegal and unwise” move to blacklist Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization.

Trump said in a statement earlier in the day that the Iranian elite forces’ designation “makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC. If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.”

The SNSC strongly condemned the “illegal and dangerous” move by the US regime against the IRGC and said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran regards this baseless move as a major threat to regional and international peace and security and a blatant violation of the compelling rules of international law and the United Nations Charter.”

It added that CENTCOM has been tasked with implementing terrorist policies of the US government against countries in West Asia, noting that CENTCOM’s effort to impose those policies has endangered Iran’s national security and the lives of both Iranians and non-Iranians, including through participation of the US in the massacre of the Yemeni people and other civilians in the West Asia region.

Iran’s SNSC also warned that the US regime “will be responsible for dangerous consequences” of this adventurist measure.”

Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif proposed that the SNSC should add American forces in West Asia to its list of terrorist groups in the Islamic Republic.

PressTV-Zarif proposes terrorist blacklisting of US forces

Foreign Minister Zarif proposes that Iran should add the United States Central Command and its forces to a list of terrorist groups.

In his letter to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who also chairs the SNSC, Zarif said given overt and covert support of US military forces in the region for terrorist groups and their direct involvement in terrorist acts, the SNSC should designate American forces as terrorists based on a law titled “Countering America’s Human Rights Violation and Adventurous and Terrorist Actions” passed by the Iranian Parliament in 2017.

The US has already blacklisted dozens of entities and individuals affiliated with the IRGC, but not the entire force.

Read more:

• IRGC warns reciprocal action against US forces if labeled ‘terrorist’
• US ‘terrorist’ designation of IRGC doomed to fail: Top judge

Syria condemns US designation of IRGC as ‘terrorist’ organization

In a related development on Monday, an official source at Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said Damascus strongly condemned the US government’s designation of the IRGC as a ‘terrorist’ organization, describing it as a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of Iran.

According to Syria’s official SANA news agency, the unnamed official added that the US administration’s “irresponsible step” was part of the declared war launched by the US against Iran.

PressTV-‘Trump’s IRGC decision reveals true face of US’

An analyst says a recent decision by the US to put the IRGC on its blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations reveals the true position of Washington towards Iran.

The Syrian official further noted that Trump’s announcement was meant to meet the interests of the Israeli occupation regime and was in line with the West’s colonial project in the region.

“The US measure is a legion of honor for and recognition of the pioneering role of the IRGC in defending Iran’s sovereignty and its … important role in the resistance front,” the source added.

Sin Is A Made-Up Religious Marketing Scheme

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With permission from

medium.com

Caitlin Johnstone

Apr 3, 2019

The word “halitosis” is a household term which everyone knows means bad breath. But did you know that the word has been around for less than a hundred years, and was invented not by the medical field, but by advertisers?

Back in the 1920s, people didn’t worry about body odor as much as they do now. They didn’t bathe nearly as often, they didn’t wear deodorant, and some bodily smells weren’t necessarily considered socially catastrophic. A family antiseptic company called Listerine was able to increase its revenue from $115,000 to $8 million over the course of seven years by helping to change that.

Listerine had been around since the 1880s, marketed as a household cleaner, a medical antiseptic, and a treatment for gonorrhea, among many other uses. Forty years later, the company’s owner and his son came up with the brilliant idea to look up a fancy latin word for bad breath that sounds like a medical condition and then market it as though it’s an actual diagnosable disease that is crippling everyone’s social life. They ran advertisements telling wives that their halitosis was making them unappealing to their husbands, telling husbands that their halitosis was making their wives not want to kiss them, telling young women that they’d remain unmarried and unwanted forever if they didn’t cure their “unexcusable” condition with Listerine, even telling mothers that their breath may be grossing out their own children.

And it worked. People began throwing their money at this company, suddenly desperate to cure a horrible medical condition that they’d only just found out was a thing. By manufacturing demand for their product using artificially instilled shame and fear, Listerine made a fortune.

This type of advertisement is now commonplace, because it works. Mothers are told that they may be endangering their children by not using X cleaning product. Fathers are made to feel as though they’re not protecting their family because they don’t own home security system Y. Wives and girlfriends are made to feel self-conscious about how their lady parts might smell if they don’t use feminine hygiene product Z. Screens, billboards and magazine ads blare constantly, “Did you know that you are deeply flawed? You are! But don’t worry, Panaceavox can fix you!” In America they’re allowed to straight up say “Hey, have you ever felt kind of emotionally not okay? Well there’s a diagnosis for that. Ask your doctor if Thorazac is right for you.” People are manipulated into fretting about a problem they didn’t know they had til two seconds ago, then sold the solution.

What people think of as “sin” is a lot like Listerine’s halitosis marketing ploy, except unlike bad breath, sin doesn’t actually exist. And, for those who profit from religion, it’s also been exponentially more lucrative.

Sin is completely made up; we’re all a bunch of large-brained primates moving around in the world and experiencing the consequences of those movements, no more, no less. As a Catholic, I was told that all babies were born sinners, with tiny little blackened souls that would go straight to hell if the priest didn’t get to them first and dunk their deceptively pretty little demon heads in magic water tout suite. It didn’t stop there either. You had to celebrate an ancient Nazarene zombie who came back from the dead because somehow that made our sins go away for a little while, just as long as you turned up each week to drink zombie blood and eat zombie body in some kind of pretend cannibal ritual. The weirdest thing about it was that I thought it was perfectly normal. That’s how you avoided being a sinner.

When you unplug those stories from the power of belief, it’s a laughably transparent marketing scheme.

“Guess what? You know how you feel like you’re basically fine? Well you’re not! You’re infected with Sin, and only this One True Religion™ can rescue you from it! That’s right, it slices, it dices, it protects your soul from eternal hellfire, it’s the One True Religion™! Follow the One True Religion™ and you will be freed from the burden of Sin, and you’ll go the the best place you can possibly imagine (*cough* when you’re dead). Refuse to follow the One True Religion™, and all that sin will cause literally the worst thing you can possibly imagine to happen to you (after you’re dead, we can’t show it to you here). Act now, supplies are running out, here comes the tithe basket, buy your way into the One True Religion™ today!”

Ridiculous, manipulative hogwash.

https://medium.com/media/32b9472f937176b6d6b6d6f6250220ec?postId=2e27454f120a

Fear isn’t the only thing factoring into people’s belief in sin, of course. It can be egoically gratifying to believe that the real assholes in our world will spend eternity writhing in a state of eternal torture for their transgressions. Also, more significantly, it can feel very comforting to have a set of prescribed “do”s and “don’t”s in a world that is otherwise a completely boundless and open-ended improvisation exercise, with no ultimate rules or guidelines of any kind. It can feel very comforting to have a set of guidelines to live by for which you have no responsibility, which were handed to you from On High by a flawless omniscient and omnipotent deity underlying the fundamental ground of reality.

But that’s just it: you are responsible. It absolutely is your responsibility to figure out how best to move around in this wide open universe, and you don’t get to abdicate that responsibility to some douchebag in a funny hat or some imaginary zombie carpenter. Sin and sanctity are made-up bullshit concepts, which means that the only understanding of how to behave in this world that has any relevance to you at all is your own understanding.

This responsibility can be daunting, but taking it seriously is the first step to becoming the kind of human being that can overcome the huge challenges that our species is facing in the near future.

To act with responsibility in life, you don’t get to rely on anyone else’s rules. You’ve got to get really clear on what you value, what kind of world you want to live in, what kind of life you’re trying to craft for yourself, and begin taking actions toward making those assessments a reality. There is no ultimate right and wrong inscribed on the fabric of reality; you’ve got to make it up for yourself, based on your own clarity of vision and your own will for your surroundings.

People say, “Well if we didn’t believe in absolute right and wrong behavior, we’d all just be a bunch of hedonistic criminals!” Rubbish. If you had the ability to make a movie and have the movie contain anything you want to see, it wouldn’t be full of rape and murder and destruction; you’d try your best to create a thing of beauty. Our lives are the same way. We’re all trying on some level to craft beautiful lives and help create an enjoyable world, which never entails going around hurting people and destroying things. And the clearer our seeing becomes, the more skillful we become in doing so.

The only exception to this would perhaps be sociopaths and psychopaths and people with other severe personality disorders, but their type has never truly believed in sin anyway. Sin is a construct of social manipulation, and manipulators recognize manipulation. A sociopath only cares about the concept of sin to the extent that they can use it to get what they want. Only emotionally and empathetically normal people are impacted by the concept of sin.

The popular acceptance of the concept of sin is a consequence of the way we are psychologically hardwired and the way that that wiring has been manipulated, and you see that same wiring fiddled with in similar ways in many other areas. The way centrists browbeat leftists for not falling in line with Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the 2016 US elections, for example, often looked barely distinguishable from a gaggle of church ladies abusing one of their sisters for wanting to leave the church or get a divorce. Instead of the promise of hell it was the promise of Donald Trump ending the world, and instead of sin being disobedience to God it was disobedience to the mainstream liberal orthodoxy. But the same kind of shaming, manipulation and groupthink herd bullying was present in both cases. The notion of personal sovereign responsibility was violently rejected as anathema by the Church of the Blue Donkey.

Sin is a tool of social manipulation just like advertising, and just like propaganda. Religion, advertising and propaganda all pull the same psychological strings. Since as far back as recorded history stretches, those with wealth and power have been using whatever tools they have at their disposal to control the ways people think and behave. When religion held more psychological weight, they used that to justify book burnings, heretic burnings, and the destruction of anything that challenged the ruling order. Now that humanity is vomiting up the plague of religion from its DNA, propaganda and advertising are taking its place.

But it’s the same kind of manipulation in each case, the same disease, and the cure for that disease is the same too. By insisting on your own sovereign perspective, all attempts to manipulate you out of that perspective begin to stand out like a black fly on a white page. By standing firmly in what you know to be true, what kind of life you know you’re trying to live, and what kind of world you know you’re trying to help create, you give yourself a clear picture of the path that you are on. With that clear picture, any attempts to manipulate you off of that path in any way are easily seen for the unwelcome intrusions that they are, whether they take the form of “You are sinful and you need Jesus,” “You are flawed and you need this product,” or “Trust Big Brother to do what’s right for you.” And you can shrug off the manipulators and stride toward the bright consequences you wish to generate with your actions.

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