This was personal. Trump didn’t have Soleimani killed to stop a war, and he certainly didn’t have him killed because he had been planning an imminent attack on four US embassies. Trump, who had been thinking of killing Soleimani for the past 7 months, had Soleimani killed because he had convinced himself that Soleimani continuing to draw air was an affront to the US.

Soleimani had the best claim of anyone in the world for the architect of victory against ISIS and had likewise dulled and thwarted the US anti-Iranian agenda for the Middle East. And he was walking around as a living reminder of that and wasn’t above publicly ridiculing Trump.

“Don’t let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected. —Be careful Republicans! Donald Trump (1946- ), 45th American president and hotel and casino owner, (statement made in a tweet, on Mon., Oct. 22, 2012)

I have long suspected that Donald Trump would do anything to save his political skin, and I mean anything, including murder and assassination — if threatened with impeachment, — and even commit an act of war against a foreign country. — Well, as I feared, he just did that against Iran.

Such is the level of public morality in the United States these days. It is pretty low. The cynical ‘wag-the-dog’ scheme is alive and well in the United States and it is used by unscrupulous politicians when they are in political trouble. Some people fall for it all the time.

Over the years, the United States government has waged a very aggressive campaign against Iran:

Trump murdered Qassem Soleimani for “saying bad things” about the USG, according to The Hill. The president, gathered Friday at Mar-a-Lago with donors and supporters, also threatened Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.

The so-called “Supreme Leader” of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United States and Europe. Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2020

In other words, if the leader of Iran criticizes the USG for wrecking Iran’s economy and forcing hardship on the people through sanctions, he might find himself targeted by a Hellfire missile.

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

During the 1980s Iran/Iraq war lasting most of the decade, the US supported Iraq while wanting both countries to smash each other.

Today, Iraq is US occupied territory. Its prime minister, parliamentarians, and most Iraqis want Pentagon and allied foreign forces expelled, the Trump regime refusing to leave.

US war by other means on Iran has been ongoing for 40 years. Assassinating IRGC Quds Force commander Soleimani turned things hot. An unofficial state of war exists between both countries.

America’s “shadow president”, Mike Pompeo, has acknowledged that the assassination of Iran’s highest-ranking military general, Qassem Soleimani, was part of a broader strategy to restore “real deterrence” by eliminating presumed enemies of the United States. Pompeo’s comments at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute on January 13, put to rest earlier claims that the Iranian general had been killed to prevent “imminent attacks on U.S. targets.” Those claims have since been discredited by independent journalists and mainstream publications that have shown that the assassination was prepared months in advance. In truth, Soleimani was killed to roll back Iran’s influence in Iraq and to reverse the effects Washington’s catastrophic counterinsurgency operation that removed the mainly Sunni-Baathist party from power creating a vacuum that was filled by Iranian-backed militias. The Solemani assassination was just the latest transgression in a conflict that dates back 17 years.

While the media focus for three years of the Trump presidency has centered around “Russia collusion” and impeachment, the most dangerous collusion of all was happening right out in the open — the Trump/Saudi/Israel/UAE drive to war with Iran.

On August 3, 2016 — just three months before Donald Trump would win the Electoral College vote and ascend to power — Blackwater founder Erik Prince arranged a meeting at Trump Tower. For decades, Prince had been agitating for a war with Iran and, as early as 2010, had developed a fantastical proposal for using mercenaries to wage it.

US President Donald Trump’s order to “take out” head of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force Major General Qassem Soleimani on the territory of Iraq was immoral and constituted a violation of international law, American lawyer and former Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz wrote in a letter to The New York Times.

Ferencz, aged 99, was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial. one of the 12 military trials held by the US authorities in Nuremberg, Germany.
http://www.benferencz.org/

David Wurmser was a longtime advocate of war with Iraq in the Bush administration. Eventually, he got what he wanted, and it was a total disaster. Now, Wurmser again has the ear of a president — this time, Donald Trump — and his sights are set firmly on Iran.

An influential neoconservative in President George W. Bush’s White House who became a significant force behind the push for war with Iraq in 2003, Wurmser has recently been serving as an informal adviser to the Trump administration, according to new reporting from Bloomberg News. In that capacity, Wurmser helped make the case for the recent drone strike that assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

The government in the district of criminals is not legitimate. They have destroyed the 1st amendment and they are working on the 2nd.

By Kevin Reed
16 January 2020

In a major escalation of online censorship, Google, Facebook and Twitter have deleted accounts and removed social media posts on multiple platforms that are opposed to the criminal assassination of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani by the Trump administration in a drone missile strike on January 3. There are indications that these censorship moves have been carried out at the direction of the US government.

Did The US or Israel Hack Iran Air Defenses Taking Down Flight 752?
What really happened to Flight 752 over Iran. Who is the mysterious man that just so happen to be up 6 AM filming Commercial airliners in the Dark? Oh did we forget that the US made it legal to lie to Americans in 2013

No matter who we vote for in this rigged system we get screwed!

On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event. She lied calling Iran an “existential threat to Israel… I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear weapons program.”

The claim that Major General Qassem Soleimani was a “terrorist” on a mission to carry out an “imminent” attack that would kill hundreds of Americans turned out to be a lie, so why should one believe anything else relating to recent developments in Iran and Iraq? To be sure, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 departing from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on the morning of January 8th with 176 passengers and crew on board was shot down by Iranian air defenses, something which the government of the Islamic Republic has admitted, but there just might be considerably more to the story involving cyberwarfare carried out by the US and possibly Israeli governments.

When you violate US and International Law and murder a diplomat and then lie through your teeth........

The Trump administration has abruptly called off four classified congressional briefings for lawmakers, who were seeking explanation about contradictory statements of the White House over assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

The State Department cancelled two briefings on the Trump administration's Iran strategy at the last moment on Wednesday, CNN reported.

Another schedule for a separate closed-door session for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was also cancelled.

FBI officials had been about to brief a group of House lawmakers on counterintelligence issues, during the briefing that was added to the calendar late last week.

The Pentagon also scrapped a Thursday classified briefing on Iran.

The United States has the legal and constitutional authority to continue attacking ‘Iranian proxies’, in Iraq or even on Iran’s home soil, in response to attacks against US troops, Defence Secretary Mark Esper has said.

“We hold Iran responsible for its proxies, and we will retain the right to exercise self-defence and take action where legally available and appropriate to hold those proxies accountable for their actions,” the Pentagon chief said, speaking to NPR.

The President does not become commander in chief until the army,navy and militia are called into actual service of the United States by a Congressional Declaration of War. This is one of the most abused and violated sections of our Constitution. Since Korea every deployment to war ordered by a US President has been in violation of the Constitution.
Section 2.

He should be impeached and convicted,but not on these charges.

The much-anticipated impeachment trial of US President Donald Trump is set to begin on Tuesday, January 21, according to US Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

McConnell, who leads the Republican majority in the Senate, told reporters Tuesday he expected the Senate to receive articles of impeachment from the House of Representatives on Wednesday, enabling them to take preliminary steps toward beginning the trial. For example, before the trial can begin, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts must swear in senators as jurors.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Tuesday the House would vote on advancing the two articles of impeachment to the Senate on Wednesday.

The government which runs a globe-spanning empire led by a reality TV host keeps talking about the lack of normality in the nation of Iran.

“We want Iran to simply behave like a normal nation,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press statement the other day. “We believe that the sanctions we imposed today further that strategic objective.”

These would be the additional sanctions which have been expanded to include virtually the entire Iranian economy, deliberately targeting Iran’s already sanction-starved populace, with the explicit goal of fomenting a civil war in that nation.

Which is of course a perfectly normal thing to do, from a perfectly normal nation.

Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate begins next week and it’s clear that this will not be a walk in the park for the President. Anyone dismissing this because the Republicans hold the Senate simply do not understand why this impeachment exists in the first place.

It is the ultimate form of leverage over a President whose desire to end the wars in the Middle East is anathema to the entrenched powers in the D.C. Swamp.

This is what I said back in September:

Mark Esper, the former US Secretary of Defense (it’s a matter of time now) said that his chief Donald Trump lied to the US citizens about the justification to carry out the most heinous murder crimes against two top commanders who fought ISIS and saved US and European lives, including the soldiers from the USA and Europe.

He said nations have to understand that the US is not only capable of imposing cost on nations by killing their leaders but “willing to do so,” saying that the killing put the US in the “greatest position of strength ever.”

It was shortly after midnight in Baghdad on Friday, Jan. 3, when a missile strike ordered by President Trump killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani.

When stock markets opened the next day, dozens of members of Congress saw bumps in their portfolios as their holdings in defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon increased in value on the possibility of war. Over the next three trading days, the leading defense industry stock index would surge 2.4% above Thursday’s close.

The Trump administration is neck deep in deepstate globalist scum.
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3582/CFR-Members-Ap...

The strategic stupidity of Trump’s order to murder Soleimani cannot be exaggerated. This shocking, dastardly murder, committed while Soleimani was on an American-encouraged peace mission, has unleashed a “Pearl Harbor effect” that will galvanize not just the nation of Iran, but other forces in the region and around the world.

Will the national security nightmare ever end?

If one seriously seeks to understand how delusional policymakers in Washington are it is only necessary to examine the responses by the president and Congress to the assassination of Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani. The first response came in the form of a Donald Trump largely incoherent nine-minute self-applauding speech explaining what he had done and why. It was followed by a House of Representatives War Powers non-binding resolution that was all theater and did nothing to limit the president’s unilateral ability to go to war with the Islamic Republic.

It was reported that the Trump speech had been hurriedly written by aides the night before it was given and that it existed in several competing drafts. It was full of out-and-out lies and half truths and intended to reassure the American people that the president was keeping them safe.
Philip Giraldi

WE are on our way to becoming a Pariah Nation.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today that victims of a Ukrainian flight that crashed in Iran would still be alive if the US hadn’t triggered tensions in the region.

In an interview with Global television, Trudeau suggested America’s assassination of Iran’s General Qassem Soleimani had brought about the tensions in the region, and the subsequent response from Tehran to target a US military base in Iraq. The Ukrainian flight was accidentally hit by a missile which was intended for the American base.

He said: “I think if there were no tensions, if there was no escalation recently in the region, those Canadians would be right now home with their families.”

President Trump’s claim Gen. Qassem Soleimani was going to attack four embassies was immediately suspect, both because of the absence of evidence offered with it, and its odd specificity. It sounded made up. It was.

Donald Trump occasionally utters unspeakable truths. In March 2018 he called Bush Jr.’s decision to invade Iraq “the worst single mistake in US history.” Earlier, Trump had said that Bush should have been impeached for launching that disastrous war.

Yet on January 2 2020 Trump made a much bigger mistake: He launched all-out war with Iran—a war that will be joined by millions of anti-US non-Iranians, including Iraqis—by murdering Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the legendary hero who defeated ISIS, alongside the popular Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Gen. Soleimani was by far the most popular figure in Iran, where he polled over 80% popularity, and throughout much of the Middle East. He was also adored by millions even outside that region, non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Many Christians throughout the world loved Gen. Soleimani, whose campaign against ISIS saved the lives of thousands of their co-religionists.

Birds of a feather.......?

It’s particularly interesting to see ISIS, Israel, and the United States on the same side when it comes to Soleimani’s death. A weekly ISIS newspaper called al-Naba praised the assassination and called it “divine intervention” “an act of God” and stated that Soleimani’s death will assist their efforts to regroup in Iraq. It’s blatantly obvious that ISIS saw him as a deterrent while Washington painted him to be the “number one terrorist”. This further illustrates how Washington’s alleged “war on terror” is nothing more than an excuse to invade countries and control their natural resources all while bolding Israel.

Trump blinked. After threatening to bomb military and cultural sites in Iran, President Donald Trump has apparently backed down on further escalation in his quasi-war with Iran. He tried to spin his decision as a US victory, claiming his administration had supposedly made America safer by assassinating Iranian Major General Qassem Suleimani.
Despite a public statement that it does not seek further escalation, the Trump administration may yet see more retaliation, according to a high-level Iranian government source. So far, he tells me, Iran has focused on military targets, but he notes that Suleimani has "millions of followers all across the region from Yemen to Lebanon who will be seeking revenge from the United States. Iran cannot control them."

"Trump’s assets all around the world will be considered as legitimate," says the source, who didn’t want his name used for security reasons.

The US was warned by Iran through the Iraqi government and by the Swiss envoy,who does our business in Tehran. Over 2 hours before the strike.

Troops stationed at an Iraqi air base knew beforehand that the facility will be attacked by Iran, which helped them to safely take shelter, unnamed sources were cited by CNN as saying on Sunday.

Sources asserted that most US forces were either withdrawn from the base or sheltered in bunkers for two-and-a-half-hours before Iran launched missiles on Wednesday.

At the same time, the sources claimed that although the US troops were in the know about the attack, they didn't know what the nature of the attack would be.

If someone invites a person to a peace conference, and then murders him on his way to attend that event, would you say that this killer is the kind of person you’d like to hang out with (thinking he’s just like your favorite Hollywood superhero — handsome, powerful and dishonorable)?

Proudly boasting of that power U.S. President Donald Trump took it upon himself to murder an Iranian folk hero whom he had lured to a secret peace negotiation in Baghdad.

Trump’s power gave him the right to murder an honorable soldier in a disgustingly dishonorable way, a soldier who had fought bravely for both his country and his neighbors against the universal menace of the worldwide Jewish money machine? Who exactly is the enemy here?

New evidence is surfacing which further suggests the impeachment trial is just an effort to pressure President Trump to go to war with Iran.

(a) Whoever kills or attempts to kill a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113 of this title Show.

(b) For the purposes of this section:

(1) “Family” includes (a) a spouse, parent, brother or sister, child, or person to whom the foreign official or internationally protected person stands in loco parentis, or (b) any other person living in his household and related to the foreign official or internationally protected person by blood or marriage.

(2) “Foreign government” means the government of a foreign country, irrespective of recognition by the United States.

(3) “Foreign official” means—

Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, served in the U.S. Senate from 2007 to 2013 and was secretary of the Navy under President Ronald Reagan from 1987 to 1988.

Strongly held views are unlikely to change regarding the morality and tactical wisdom of President Trump’s decision to kill Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani as he traveled on a road outside the Baghdad airport after having arrived on a commercial flight. But the debate regarding the long-term impact of this act on America’s place in the world, and the potential vulnerability of U.S. government officials to similar reprisals, has just begun.

Esper just hung Trump out to dry.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said on Sunday that he did not see intelligence that supported President Trump’s comments that the Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike was plotting attacks against four U.S. embassies.

Esper said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that he shared Trump’s view that planning was underway but did not cite intelligence information he saw to support the claims.

Correct me if I am wrong, Trump is the first President to openly claim credit for the assassination of a foreign chief of state. Historically, heads of state are assassinated by the CIA as black budget operations, giving a president plausible deniability in the press. Trump in this case both admits responsibility for the strike and is actively taunting the Iranians with the death of their #2 on social media.

What president in their right mind would get on a public platform and brag about assassinating a head of state like Trump has done this last week, and then, on top of that, threaten 52 Iranian targets including cultural sites if they decide to respond with their own attacks?

We now know that it was a missile fired by an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) missile complex that brought down Ukrainian flight PS752. We also know that it was no accident, bur rather, a deliberate act.

Whether the missile was fired due to the actions of a human traitor within the IRGC or due to remote hacking into the missile’s control systems is unknown; however, the outcome is the same – nearly 200 dead civilians whose deaths can be blamed on the IRGC.

The idea behind the shootdown appears to be to undermine the current Iranian leadership by discrediting it’s main supporter – the IRGC.

Every single suicide bomb operation carried out by Daesh against our people (in the region) and in every mosque and church, must be labelled with ‘Made in America’

– America is the number one threat and Israel is merely a US tool and military outpost planted in our region

– The response to America’s crime (in killing Soleimani & Muhandis) is not one operation, but rather a long track which must lead to US forces leaving the region

– What happened in Ain Al-Assad is only a slap & not the (entire) revenge for the assassination. It is a strong military beginning. It is the first step that will lead to the withdrawal of US from the region

– The main target (of Iran’s missile attack) was Ain al-Assad, the missiles reached the heart of the base and struck their targets

– When (certain) media began to say there were no deaths or injuries & downplayed the attack, we knew Trump will not go to war

By Aaron Kesel

There are many who accuse U.S. President Donald Trump of “wagging the dog” when it comes to the recent bombing that killed Al Quds commander Qassem Soleimani due to the fact he is facing impeachment. While many media outlets have stated this accusation suggesting the assassination of Iran’s Soleimani was pre-planned, to this writer’s knowledge no one has pointed out that five total Pentagon officials resigned prior to the murder or Eric Trump’s strange tweet about “opening a can of whoop ass,” right before the New Year.

On January 3rd, just a few hours after the world became aware of the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by an American drone attack, Ariel, the so called ‘Jewish dissenter’ rushed to post the following tweet:

“Loving reminder to folks rightfully horrified the US attack on Iran: please don’t frame this as being as being done to please Israel. This is Donald Trump and his band of US war hawks, period. To suggest Jews are pulling the strings is nothing short of antisemitism.”

Days after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, new and important information is coming to light from a speech given by the Iraqi prime minister. The story behind Soleimani’s assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported.

The Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has revealed details of his interactions with Trump in the weeks leading up to Soleimani’s assassination.

He tried to explain several times on live television how Washington had been browbeating him and other Iraqi members of parliament to toe the American line, even threatening to engage in false-flag sniper shootings of both protesters and security personnel in order to inflame the situation.

The purpose? To throw Iraq into chaos.

(a) Whoever kills or attempts to kill a foreign official, official guest, or internationally protected person shall be punished as provided under sections 1111, 1112, and 1113 of this title Show.

Donald Trump is under the illusion that the fracas with Iran is over. He thinks that Iran’s pinprick missile strikes on US bases in Iraq have assuaged Tehran’s thirst for revenge. But he’s wrong. The missile strikes were merely the first salvo in an epic cage match between Iran’s Axis of Resistance and its 70 year-long nemesis, the United States. As Iran’s Supreme Leader said on Wednesday, the missile attacks were not sufficient payback for the assassination of Iran’s most decorated military hero, Qassem Soleimani. They were just “a slap”, just Round One in what will surely be a long and bloody campaign aimed at driving the US out of the Middle East.

Really? Baddest of the bad? Most blood-soaked? How about General Stanley McChrystal, the guy who organized and paid off death squads in Iraq, and who, as head of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) oversaw notoriously criminal and brutal interrogations in that country and later Afghanistan, and then moved his death squad proclivities to that latter country when he took over command of the Afghanistan War? How about Marine General “Mad Dog” Mattis, who earned his monicker for saying, “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.

For as long as I’ve been alive, my country has been a rogue state.

Actually, the US became a rogue state four years before my birth in 1949 when, in 1945, Washington decided to bomb two militarily insignificant cities in Japan with its new super weapon, the atomic bomb, instantly incinerating several hundred thousand Japanese civilians, including many, many children, and condemning at least that many more to slow agonizing deaths from resulting cancers and birth defects.

The assertions being repeated today seem based on apparently groundless claims from twelve years ago by the same people who said Iraq possessed weapons, weapons programs, and weapons systems that were such a grave threat that they ignited the U.S.-Iraq war.

President Trump said his order to launch the drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani came amid pressure from Senate Republicans he views as key allies in his upcoming impeachment trial, The Wall Street Journal reported and The New York Times reported this week.

The articles did not name the GOP senators, but many of Trump's allies in the Senate, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), have praised his decision to take out the Quds Force commander in Baghdad

Mike Pompeo admitted U.S. officials didn't know when or where attacks allegedly planned by Iranian General Qassem Soleimani would take place, despite previous claiming that the latter posed an "imminent" threat to American personnel.

The secretary of state said officials did not know "precisely" when or where the alleged plots would occur, but insisted the threat "was real" in a Fox News interview on Thursday night.

Trump is using an Israeli excuse to commit murder.

In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence.

US officials have said they have no intention of leaving Iraq, but they’re skirting the legal reality of the situation by saying they’ve yet to get a formal request from Iraq to leave. How long they can maintain that pretense by simply telling Iraq not to talk about it remains to be seen.

Iraq is already looking for holes in this fairly transparent attempt to avoid discussion, with Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi asking Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to devise some sort of mechanism whereby Iraq could actually request the US to leave.

Those Americans who speak out against the insanity of the district of criminals are the next people who will be targeted by the US Military for death!

The American people are now facing a new political challenge brought on by the recent U.S. assassinations of Iranian and Iraqi military figures.

The fact is that both parties are in agreement that in order to maintain their superpower status, a major war against the “Foreign Enemy” is necessary, but more importantly, they are more fearful of the “Domestic Enemy” – that is a majority of the population who are dissatisfied and who are the real producers of goods and wealth with the power to govern and create a peaceful and prosperous society!

A government that justifies the terrorist act of ASSASSINATION, soon will apply the same unlawful methods to deal with the internal dissents and “trouble makers”.

Deep inside a long, detailed Wall Street Journal report about President Trump’s foreign policy advisers is an explosive nugget: “Mr. Trump, after the strike, told associates he was under pressure to deal with Gen. Soleimani from GOP senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate, associates said.”

What are we really supporting when we refuse the truth and accept the war lies and the permanent war agenda?

We are supporting al Qaeda/ISIS, Empire’s proxies. We are supporting an overseas holocaust. We are supporting the military dictatorship of Washington-led NATO and the collapse of International Law. We are supporting a New Fascist World Order and our subservience to supranational diktats.We are supporting the thirdworldization of our own political economies.

The Truth is deplatformed in this New Fascist Order. Politicians do not represent the people. Representative government is a projected perception, empty of substance.

Everyone has heard by now that Soleimani was responsible for 600 American deaths . . . but where does this oddly specific number come from? Today on "Questions For Corbett," James finds the answer at the bottom of a barrel of neocon lies.

(CD) — The State Department on Friday made clear that the American military will not abide by the requests of the Iraqi government to leave the country and instead will stay indefinitely.

“America is a force for good in the Middle East,” State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus claimed in a statement reaffirming that the U.S. will remain in Iraq

This morning (January 7) Pompeo, the embarrassment we suffer as our Secretary of State, was on TV promising to “confront and contain” Iran. A political general was featured declaring that he had seen the intelligence reports and was certain that the murder of Soleimani had stopped an attack. If the general saw any such “intelligence” it was fixed intelligence to produce the desired result. Regardless, Soleimani’s murder was a crime and an act of war. The previous day Pompeo suggested that Trump might have to kill some more Iranian leaders, because Obama had emboldened Iran by appeasing them. This is just another of Pompeo’s false accusations. Obama accepted the agreement that Iran would not enrich uranium to the extent required by weapons. Inspectors have verified that Iran has kept the agreement.

It was Trump, pushed by Israel’s agents, the neoconservatives, who broke the agreement and restarted the conflict with Iran by issuing threat after threat.

By Aaron Kesel

There are many who accuse U.S. President Donald Trump of “wagging the dog” when it comes to the recent bombing that killed Al Quds commander Qassem Soleimani due to the fact he is facing impeachment. While many media outlets have stated this accusation suggesting the assassination of Iran’s Soleimani was pre-planned, to this writer’s knowledge no one has pointed out that five total Pentagon officials resigned prior to the murder or Eric Trump’s strange tweet about “opening a can of whoop ass,” right before the New Year.

The Soleimani ploy has apparently failed, however, thanks to the carefully prepared Iranian response, which did not provoke Donald Trump to raise the stakes further. At least not yet.

The fingerprints of Pompeo are all over this provocation to war. In a striking parallel to the deception that accompanied the Gulf of Tonkin crisis in 1964—in which the American public was told about an attack on a U.S. ship that never happened, precipitating the Vietnam War—Pompeo and his allies carried out a complex deception in regard to the Soleimani hit. They claimed they had to kill the second most popular leader of Iran with no advance notice to Congress because the Iranian general was planning a massive attack that put the country in “imminent” danger. Trump officials have so far not provided any evidence publicly to back up this version of events.

In the address, Abdul-Mahdi revealed that that Soleimani had traveled to Baghdad to deliver a message back from Iran to Saudi Arabia about a proposal to lower tensions in the region, that Soleimani was to meet with the Prime Minister the very morning he was assassinated, and — most crucially — that days prior Trump had asked the Iraqi Prime Minister to “play the mediator’s role” between the U.S. and Iran.

Oddly, this information is not yet a major headline in any mainstream publication and those that have mentioned it in passing do not explain its full implications.

“Voice of Iranians,” wrote the 27-year-old alongside a video in which an Iranian said behind tears: “Is this democracy? Are we humans or not? What should we do? You tell us,” the man desperately asks.

“What is your message to America,” ABC’s Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz asked the man.

“I’m saying, we love Americans, but we hate your President,” he said.

On January 3, the United States assassinated Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard and the de facto commander of Iranian efforts of expansion throughout the Middle East.

American drones targeted his convoy near Baghdad International Airport killing him instantly. Iran responded with a pre-dawn missile attack on an American base in Iraq Wednesday, and tensions appear to have eased since.

“He was a monster. He is no longer a monster. He’s dead,” President Donald Trump declared in the aftermath of the killing.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump’s motion to liquidate a top Iranian commander, CNN reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating Pompeo’s influential status in the Trump administration.

According to several sources, taking Iranian General Qasem Soleimani – the leader of the elite Quds Force, a powerful military group with vast leverage in the region – “off the battlefield” has been Pompeo’s goal for a decade.

If passed by Senate, it cannot be vetoed by President Trump.

In a vote heavily split along party lines, the House of Representatives passed H.Con.Res.83, a War Powers Resolution seeking to limit President Trump’s ability to unilaterally attack Iran without any Congressional authorization, by a vote of 224-194. It also opposed last week’s attack on the Baghdad International Airport, which assassinated Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Though many Republicans argued it was non-binding, analyst Robert Naiman pointed out that under the War Powers Act’s own language, this type of resolution is binding. The concurrent resolution could not be vetoed by the president.

Supporters of the bill noted that Trump carried out the attack without significant Congressional dialogue, let alone authorization. They added that President Trump has shown himself unable to articulate a real strategy for the war.

Trump has now committed real impeachable offenses.

The United States’ targeted airstrike against Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq has placed the U.S. on the precipice of an undeclared war with Iran, a hostile and militarily sophisticated foreign government, all without the consent of Congress.

Trump’s decision to strike without notifying congressional leaders is without precedent in history. There’s also no precedent for an American president openly ordering the killing of a senior state official of a country on which the U.S. has not officially declared war.

An unconfirmed number of Afghan civilians – reportedly more than 60 – were killed along with the regional leader of a splinter Taliban faction and dozens of militants in a US drone attack in Herat province on Wednesday.

Local government officials and members of the Herat provincial council told Tolo News, Afghanistan’s leading 24/7 television news channel, that "at least 60 civilians, including women and children" died in US drone strikes in Shindand, a town in southern Herat. The outlet reported that four armed drones attacked several homes, targeting Mullah Mohammad Nangyalai, the regional leader of an insurgent faction of the Taliban led by Mullah Mohammad Rasoul. Some 30-35 Taliban fighters were also reportedly killed in the attack.

When asked by a reporter for details about what kinds of imminent attacks Soleimani was planning, the State Dept. responds with:

"Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?"

Totally normal.

Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he’d be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Trump is now the Head Swamp Monster. What this war criminal did is an impeachable offence and a war crime. This moron has put a target on the back of every US Government official.

Once upon a time there was a Constitution of the United States. In Article II, Section 2 it stipulated that only the U.S. Congress has the power to declare war, which means the American president has to go to the legislative body and make a case for going to war against an enemy or enemies. If there is a vote in favor of war, the president is empowered as commander-in-chief to direct the available resources against the enemy.

As millions of Iranians mourn the US murder of Qassem Soleimani, ex-Bush administration official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson discuses the parallels between Bush's war on Iraq and Trump's campaign against Iran; the history of US shunning diplomacy with Tehran; and how an addiction to war drives US foreign policy.

Guest: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell. Currently a distinguished professor at the College of William and Mary.

The story behind Soleimani’s assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported, involving Saudi Arabia and China as well the US dollar’s role as the global reserve currency.

Abdul-Mehdi spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.

Correct me if I am wrong, Trump is the first President to openly claim credit for the assassination of a foreign chief of state. Historically, heads of states are assassinated by the CIA as black budget operations giving a president plausible deniability in the press. Trump in this case both admits responsibility for the strike and is actively taunting the Iranians with the death of their #2 on social media.

What president in their right mind would get on a public platform and brag about assassinating a head of state like Trump has done this last week, and then, on top of that, threaten 52 Iranian targets including cultural sites if they decide to respond with their own attacks?

Take the window dressing away from the Pentagon and media propaganda and all one has left is that the United States illegally and openly killed a senior official from a country with which it is not at war and did so without the consent of the third country where the assassination took place with which the U.S. is also not at war. The assassination was not in reality based on any imminent threat and is therefore illegal under international law and is undeniably an unconstitutional act of war directed against both Iran and Iraq.

Once upon a time there was a Constitution of the United States. In Article II, Section 2 it stipulated that only the U.S. Congress has the power to declare war, which means the American president has to go to the legislative body and make a case for going to war against an enemy or enemies. If there is a vote in favor of war, the president is empowered as commander-in-chief to direct the available resources against the enemy.

General Soleimani devised genius military tactics to counter both American and Israeli plans; although Israel doesn’t share a border with Iran, Iran assuredly shares a border with Israel. Deploying the Iranian Revolutionary Guards alongside local pro Iran militias into areas of conflict allowed Soleimani to encircle the Jewish state within a wall of fierce resistance. Iran’s regional allies are superbly trained, ideologically and religiously motivated and they have the benefit of the rich Iranian ballistic arsenal and technology that can deliver lethal punishment to Israel in a conflict.

Similar tactics were put into action by General Soleimani against American military forces in the region. Iran may not share a border with the USA but pro Iranian Iraqi militias have managed to surround and harass American forces in Iraq. Iran also dominates the most strategic passes in the Persian Gulf through its Shia militias in Yemen.

The host of Redacted Tonight has listed six things about the highly controversial killing that the media has either ignored completely or under-reported, including the not-so-convenient fact that Soleimani had come to Baghdad to hold de-escalation talks with Saudi Arabia – before being killed by a US drone.

Check out the expressions on General Milley's face and some of the other officers. Pence looks happy. The military people don't. Milley looks like he is chewing nails. CIA drone did the deed. The US Military took the hit. Trump a day or 2 earlier in 2 letters to the Iranians delivered by the Swiss envoy, asked the Iranians for a proportional response ie. kill a US high ranking officer and not to hit a base with a bunch of missiles.
I think we have a really pissed off military at the moment. They are probably mad at damn near everybody because they have been made the Patsies for this mess.

Federico Pieraccini for Strategic Culture
Days after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, new and important information is coming to light from a speech given by the Iraqi prime minister. The story behind Soleimani’s assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported, involving Saudi Arabia and China as well the US dollar’s role as the global reserve currency.

Above all, the Saudi Royal family wanted to let people know immediately that they had not been informed of the US operation:

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not consulted regarding the US strike. In light of the rapid developments, the Kingdom stresses the importance of exercising restraint to guard against all acts that may lead to escalation, with severe consequences.

If Tehran ever decided to shut down the Strait of Hormuz it would trigger a global depression, writes Pepe Escobar.

Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani had flown into Baghdad on a normal carrier flight, carrying a diplomatic passport. He had been sent by Tehran to deliver, in person, a reply to a message from Riyadh on de-escalation across the Middle East. Those negotiations had been requested by the Trump administration.

So, Baghdad was officially mediating between Tehran and Riyadh, at the behest of Trump. And Soleimani was a messenger.

Now, the fact is that the United States government – on foreign soil, as a guest nation – has assassinated a diplomatic envoy who was on an official mission that had been requested by the United States government itself.

Qasem Soleimani was assassinated on January 2nd, 2020 in Baghdad by a drone strike ordered by Israel-first Trump. The Iranian Commander of the ‘Quds Force’ was murdered alongside the leader of the Iraqi ‘Popular Mobilization Forces’, Jamal Jaafar Ibrahimi, aka Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, in addition to at least 6 other persons.

It was a coward act by a coward President who’s no better than a gangbanger on a drive-by shooting targeting unarmed individuals, who in this case were on a diplomatic mission.

When the Pentagon offered President Trump a series of potential responses to missile strikes on a U.S. base in Kirkuk, Iraq, by an Iranian-backed militia, they "tacked on the choice" of killing Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Quds Force commander and the second most powerful figure in Iran, "mainly to make other options seem reasonable,"

Trump’s successful presidential campaign included a pledge to disengage from useless Asian wars, a promise that might well have been his margin of victory.

Having executed a deliberate, planned assassination of a foreign leader, the United States has committed an act of war and is now de facto at war with Iran in a conflict that could easily have been avoided and which will not end well for any of the participants.

The blood of the Americans, Iranians and Iraqis who will die in the next few weeks is clearly on Donald Trump’s hands as this war was never inevitable and serves no U.S. national interest. It will surely turn out to be a debacle, as well as devastating for all parties involved. And it might well, on top of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, be the long-awaited beginning of the end of America’s imperial ambitions. Trump has had three years to learn the lesson gleaned from Iraq and Afghanistan. He obviously used that time to learn nothing.

Iran has already complained that the US breached international laws with the targeted killing of General Soleimani. The US Secretary of State said any US military strikes inside Iran would be legal.

The Trump administration is barring Iran’s top diplomat from entering the United States this week to address the United Nations Security Council about the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top military official in Baghdad, violating the terms of a 1947 headquarters agreement requiring Washington to permit foreign officials into the country to conduct U.N. business, according to three diplomatic sources.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Doubling Down Into Another “March of Folly”?

The drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in June 1914, which led to World War I. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to warn of “severe revenge.” That Iran will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing is a near certainty. And escalation into World War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given the multitude of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and in nearby waters.

America's second largest oil company has evacuated all of its American oil workers from Iraq following last week's U.S. airstrike in Baghdad.

New Delhi, Jan 04 (ANI): Speaking on US strike on Iran where Iran’s top commander General Qasem Soleimani was killed, Ambassador of Syria to India, Daniel Chuburu said, “This process will make danger escalation in the region. It proves that how America is keen to protect terrorism in the ground because America killed the leader who was against the terror groups. The leader Qasem Soleimani was the leader of military group and defeated ISIS in the ground of Iraq and Syria. ISIS is created by CIA, which is Central Intelligence Agency of America. Because America is keen to protect ISIS so, they killed Mr. Qasem Soleimani.”

Iran’s parliament on Tuesday passed a bill labelling the entire US military a terrorist organisation in response to last week’s assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani by the United States.

The Iranian parliament’s presiding board earlier called the drone hit on Soleimani an act of ‘state-sponsored terrorism’.

The motion, which was approved unanimously by the Majlis, also allocated over $220 million to the Quds force, an elite unit responsible for clandestine military and intelligence operations abroad

Gen. Soleimani had been the Quds Force long-time commander; he was widely credited with helping Iraq defeat Daesh* and was considered to be one of Iran’s most prominent political figures, so his killing was interpreted by many in Iran as the de-facto declaration of war.

Iraq's caretaker prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, told his parliament in Baghdad on Sunday that US strike on Soleimani was a 'political assassination'
Abdul Mahdi claimed that Soleimani was due to meet with him on the same day that he was killed by a US drone near the Baghdad airport early on Friday
The outgoing Iraqi leader says that Soleimani was supposed to bring him Iran's response to a Saudi proposal for de-escalating regional tensions
Saudi Arabia, a regional rival, blames Iran for an attack on the kingdom's oil facilities in September
Abdul Mahdi also claims that President Trump called him and asked him to mediate talks with Iran after the US embassy in Baghdad was nearly overrun
Supporters of the Shiite group Kataib Hezbollah scaled the walls and barreled through security at the US embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday
Abdul Mahdi said he personally intervened to defuse the embassy crisis and that the American president thanked him for doing so

The beginning of the end for US Forces in the Middle East. I hope they get them out before a bunch of US service men and women get killed. But that is probably wishful thinking on my part. Neither Trump or Pompus ass or Esper give a fuck about the lives of anyone under them. In 2 letters the Swiss envoy delivered to Iran,Trump asked Iran to not massively retaliate against US Forces. He asked for a proportional response,ie,kill one of our generals and we can call it even. I don't think the military is too happy with this pack of neocons.

The the US-led military coalition purportedly fighting the Daesh terrorist group has reportedly relocated its headquarters in Iraq to Kuwait in the wake of recent assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and the second-in-command of Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and public rage over the targeted killings.

Millions of Iranians have packed the streets of Tehran to pay homage to the Middle East's most prominent anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani who was assassinated on US President Donald Trump's order Friday.

A huge sea of mourners, streaming from all the adjoining streets in freezing temperatures, descended on the iconic Engelab Square in central Tehran Monday morning before rallying to Azadi Tower in the capital's west.

Chanting "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," they carried portraits of their national hero whose assassination in a US airstrike at Baghdad airport has generated an outpouring of anger and patriotism across Iran and elsewhere, with vociferous calls for revenge.

Articles of impeachment by House Dems against Trump with no legitimate standing seek political advantage in November’s presidential and congressional elections.

That’s what this is all about, ignoring serious Trump wrongdoing, just cause for impeachment and removal from office. More on this below.

Under the Constitution’s Article II, Section 4, impeachment and conviction require proving “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

”No legitimacy exists to impeach Trump for abuse of power on grounds of seeking interference from Ukraine to aid his 2020 presidential reelection and obstruction of Congress for defying House subpoenas.

Clear just cause exists to impeach and remove him from office for crimes of war, against humanity, and betraying the public trust by serving monied interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary people he greatly harmed at home and abroad.

But now he’s just a madman with nukes, being pulled by betrayal, frustration, anger and fear towards making even more dangerous decisions than the ones he’s already made.

Because, when you realize that Soleimani was in Baghdad to deliver Iran’s opening terms for a negotiated peace with Saudi Arabia, this attack was a blunder.

When you further realize that Soleimani was there at Trump’s behest with Iraqi Prime Minister Mahdi as broker, this attack looks like patently insane.

Complete confusion reigned at the Pentagon after the publication of a letter about withdrawal from Iraq, with the top general describing it as a “mistake” and the Defense Secretary arguing there were no plans for the US pullout.

In the address, Abdul-Mahdi revealed that that Soleimani had traveled to Baghdad to deliver a message back from Iran to Saudi Arabia about a proposal to lower tensions in the region, that Soleimani was to meet with the Prime Minister the very morning he was assassinated, and — most crucially — that days prior Trump had asked the Iraqi Prime Minister to “play the mediator’s role” between the U.S. and Iran.

Oddly, this information is not yet a major headline in any mainstream publication and those that have mentioned it in passing do not explain its full implications.

Donald Trump’s threat to destroy the sites of ancient Persia should send a shiver down the spine of any civilised person. How can anything justify American bombing of Persepolis or the mosques of Isfahan? Only the demented can see them as “threatening America”. It is on the same ethical plane as the Islamic State vandalism of Palmyra and Mosul.

The destruction of cultural artefacts in war is specifically outlawed under the Hague convention of 1954 and subsequent protocols. It ranks with genocide, chemical weapons and the “strategic” bombing of civilians as beyond the pale of human behaviour. The US does not recognise most of these treaties as it concedes extraterritorial sovereignty, but it normally obeys them.

After Washington’s illegal assassination of Iran’s decorated and beloved general, Qasem Soleimani, media outlets and pundits on both sides of the aisle wasted no time spewing falsehoods. These outlets and journalists rely on the ignorance of readers to peddle their lies and rewrite the narrative.

Indeed, most Americans had never heard the name “Qasem Soleimani” prior to January 2, 2020, but were suddenly instructed to hate him.

Following a vote by the Iraqi parliament to remove foreign troops from the nation, the US president threatened to destroy Iraq’s economy in retaliation and to refuse to leave unless an expensive military base worth billions of dollars was paid for.

“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis,” Trump told the press on Sunday. “We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame. If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

We are governed now by a Twit who Tweets!

US President Donald Trump has told Congress to follow his Twitter posts for any action against Iran if it retaliates against the death of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in an American drone strike last week.

Trump who ordered the killing of Soleimani without giving prior information to Congressional leaders, said in the dramatic tweet on Sunday that he was not legally required to notify Congress.

The Trump administration claimed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani was planning “imminent attacks” on US interests when it assassinated him. That lie was just destroyed, but not before countless corporate media outlets transmitted it to the public.
By Max Blumenthal