Trump beloofde geen extra oorlog in het Midden-Oosten >> toch heeft hij het pad vrijgemaakt voor oorlog tegen Iran.......

Voordat Trump tot president werd verkozen, beloofde hij z'n toehoorders geen onzinnige oorlogen te zullen beginnen in het Midden-Oosten, maar heeft intussen met het opzeggen van de Iran-deal de weg vrijgemaakt voor een (zoveelste illegale) VS oorlog tegen Iran........

Een oorlog die volgens echte deskundigen niet te winnen is en waarbij vergeleken de illegale oorlogen tegen Afghanistan en Irak een schoolreisje zijn..........

Zelfs 'mad dog' Mattis en generaal Votel, beiden 'gerenomeerde' oorlogsmisdadigers en vertrouwelingen van het 666 beest Trump, betreuren de beslissing die deze domme psychopaat heeft genomen (na influistering van oorlogsmisdadiger en oorlogshitser Bolton en opperschoft Pompeo)..... Volgens Votel en Mattis werkte de Iran-nuclear-deal perfect..... Iran heeft 98% van haar plutonium opgegeven en de fabriek waar plutonium zou kunnen worden verrijkt is geheel ontmanteld........ Bovendien staat Iran grondige onderzoeken op haar grondgebied toe van de IAEA (het Internationaal Atoomagentschap in Wenen).......

Met de stap van Trump heeft hij niet alleen de andere partners in deze deal voor de benen geschopt, maar heeft hij Iran duidelijk gemaakt dat voor de VS maar één Iran kan bestaan, een Iran dat slaafs doet wat 'de baas van de wereld', de VS haar opdraagt (onder controle van de fascistische apartheidsstaat Israël, dat Iran al jaren geleden het liefst zou hebben platgegooid met kernraketten, hetzelfde Israël dat zelf geen kernwapens zou mogen bezitten...).... 

Kortom het moet wel erg vreemd lopen als Iran niet zeer spoedig weer haar gang naar een kernwapen zal opnemen, immers de stap van Trump opent de weg naar een oorlog met Iran en hoe kan je een oorlog met zo'n machtige tegenstander het best voorkomen? Juist, met kernwapens!!! (nogmaals waar Israël het liefst Iran zou wegvagen met kernraketten, ook eerder al een reden voor Teheran om zelf kernwapens te ontwikkelen...)

Hetzelfde geldt overigens voor Noord-Korea, dat niet alleen de uitlating vreest van Bolton dat Noord-Korea een Libië scenario wacht, maar die ook door het gedrag van de VS t.a.v. Iran een bevestiging zien dat de VS niet uit is op vrede, iets wat de leiding in dat land al decennia roept......... Niet voor niets dat Noord-Korea nu strakkere voorwaarden stelt, althans als Kim Yung-un over een paar weken nog wil praten met Trump...........

Lullig genoeg zijn er zelfs 'journalisten' in Nederland die de stap van Trump verdedigen als een logische, zo hoorde ik op Radio1........ ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! 

Lees het volgende artikel van William Hartung, overgenomen van ANTIWAR:

Trump Trashes Diplomacy, Opens Path to War with Iran

William Hartung 
May 17, 2018

President Trump’s decision to violate and withdraw from the Iran anti-nuclear deal is one of the most dangerous foreign policy blunders in recent memory, setting the stage for a war that one analyst has noted could “make the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts look like a walk in the park.”

The decision to go back on a U.S. commitment to a deal that even US Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel and Secretary of Defense James Mattis have acknowledged was working is the ultimate unforced error, and the potential consequences could not be more dire. Donald Trump is crowing about keeping his promise to scuttle the deal, but this is one promise that should never have been made.
The results of the decision could include a greater chance that Iran will decide to acquire a nuclear weapon, along with a real possibility that uber-hawks like John “Bomb Iran” Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will use it as a stepping stone towards war, if not now then sometime in the near future. 

The claims of Bolton and his allies in and out of government that tough talk or support for poorly organized and widely unpopular opponents of the Iranian regime like the Mujahedeen Khalq (MEK) will be enough to drive the current government from power are a fantasy. For President Trump’s closest advisors, the true choice is diplomacy or war. And unlike the fiasco in Iraq, when the Bush administration managed to bring a few allies along for the ride, in a war against Iran the US would be going it alone. A war with Iran is not likely to play well with the American public at large or even with Trump’s base, the majority of whom believed him when he said he wouldn’t repeat the mistake of launching yet another Mideast war.

Donald Trump’s claims that he is open to negotiating a “better deal” down the road ring hollow considering the effectiveness of the deal he has just thrown away. The Iran deal was working. The product of painstaking negotiations among Iran, the US, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia, and China, the Iran antinuclear deal reduced that nation’s stockpile of enriched uranium by 98%, destroyed a major plutonium production facility, and subjected that nation’s nuclear program to rigorous inspections. By eliminating bomb-making materials and keeping Iran from developing new ones without being detected, the deal blocked any pathway to a nuclear weapon that Iran would otherwise have had. 

By contrast, the Trump administration has no viable diplomatic plan, and certainly not one that can bring other nations on board.

It remains to be seen whether the other parties to the deal can salvage it in some form in the wake of Trump’s withdrawal. But one thing is clear: it is the United States, not Iran, that has decided to trash the deal, over the strong objections of its European allies.

The chances of “success” in a Trump administration military strike on Iran – whether “success” means ending its nuclear program or provoking a change to a U.S.-friendly regime – are close to zero. A US attack will likely encourage Iran to resume and accelerate its nuclear weapons program. And regime change could require a massive bombing campaign or perhaps even a ground invasion. And keep in mind that this is all coming from a president who has repeatedly called the equally ill-advised US invasion of Iraq a “disaster.”

The imperative now is to head off any Trump administration efforts to prepare the ground for war against Iran and to remind the American public that reneging on the Iran deal is a reckless and unnecessary move that undermines the best chance of ensuring a nuclear-free Iran. The administration should be made to pay a high political price for this deeply counterproductive decision.

Originally published in Lobelog. Reprinted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus.

Zie ook: 'Iran houdt zich aan de nucleaire deal dit in tegenstelling tot de VS........'

       en: 'Israël laat alweer haar ware terreur gezicht zien: IS kan tijdelijke 'geallieerde worden' in de strijd tegen Iran en Hezbollah.........'

       en: 'Rex Tillerson (VS BuZA) geeft toe dat de VS een staatsgreep wil uitvoeren in Iran........ Het is nog 'iets te rustig' in dat gebied........'

       en: 'VS liegt schaamteloos om het westen verder op te zetten tegen Iran........'

       en: 'Iraanse protesten allesbehalve compleet spontaan (zoals VS ambassadeur bij de VN Haley durfde te stellen...)....'

       en: 'Protesten Iran opgezet door de VS en Israël'

       en: 'Iran, de protesten en wat de media je niet vertellen.........'

       en: 'De VS gaf meer dan 1 miljoen dollar uit om protesten tegen Iraans bewind uit te buiten (en te organiseren)'

       en: 'Het verborgen motief achter de Israëlische agressie tegen Iran en Syrië'

       en: 'VS bewandelt dezelfde weg richting Iran, als die voor de illegale oorlog tegen Irak in 2003, aldus één van de verantwoordelijken voor die oorlog........'

       en: 'Netanyahu vergelijkt Iran met nazi-Duitsland en stelt dat Iran een bedreiging is voor de wereldvrede..... ha! ha! ha! ha!'

       en: 'Washington uit op oorlog met Iran......'

       en: 'Oliemaatschappijen weigeren n.a.v. VS sancties de jet van Iraanse minister af te tanken'

       en: 'Israël bezig met voorbereiding op meerdere fronten oorlog........ (met hulp van de VS)'

       en: 'John Bolton heeft beloofd dat Iran voor 2019 onder een ander regime zal leven.......'

       en: 'Saoedi-Arabië dreigt Iran aan te vallen voor vanuit Jemen afgevuurde 'raketten' op Saoedische 'doelen..........''

       en: 'VS rechter gelast Iran miljarden te betalen aan de families van 911 slachtoffers.....'

       en: 'VS ambtenaren: Israël zoekt steun VS voor oorlog tegen Iran.......'

       en: 'Israël laat er geen twijfel over bestaan: met het uit de Iran-deal stappen van de VS is definitief de oorlog verklaard aan Iran.........'

       en: 'Iran moet hangen en Iran-deal moet van tafel....... Israël speelt wolf in schaapskleren'

       en: 'VS, de werelddictator: Iran-deal is van nul en generlei waarde (op basis van leugens en achterklap).......'

       en: 'Israël voert vergelding uit voor zelf uitgelokte beschieting (middels meer dan 100 bombardementen.......)'

       en: 'Iran-deal: de echte reden waarom Trump deze deal de nek heeft omgedraaid'

       en: 'Netanyahu en Bolton stoken het vuur in het Midden-Oosten verder op: Iran moet en zal vallen.....'

      en: 'VS 'laat zien op vrede uit te zijn' door dreiging Iran te vermorzelen......'

      en: 'Iran: wanneer heeft dit land voor het laatst een ander land aangevallen? 200 jaar geleden.....'

      en: 'Iran het volgende slachtoffer van ongebreidelde VS terreur'

VS militair-industrieel complex houdt het 'land' in een wurggreep........

Dat de VS zo goed als failliet is, gezien de enorme staatsschuld, is nog voor weinigen die het nieuws volgen een geheim. Het feit dat de dollar nog steeds wordt gebruikt als grootste internationaal betaalmiddel (zo wordt de olieprijs in dollars uitgedrukt) en het feit dat een land als China enorme voorraden dollars in het bezit heeft, zorgt ervoor dat de VS door kan gaan met enorme investeringen (op de pof) in de oorlogsindustrie, ofwel in het militair-industrieel complex......

Op 1 december jl, plaatste JP Sotille een artikel over het militair-industrieel complex (MIC) op Consortiumnews (CN), een artikel dat Anti-Media op 3 december publiceerde. In dit artikel legt Sotille uit  hoe het kan, dat de VS de ene (illegale) oorlog na de andere begint, terwijl een groot deel van het volk oorlogsmoe is....... Niet alleen het angstzaaien voor figuren als de Noord-Koreaanse dictator Kim Yung-un, maar ook ronduit oorlogshitsen door lobbyisten van het militair-industrieel complex, zijn de oorzaak voor het belachelijke budget dat de VS jaarlijks uittrekt voor 'defensie' (lees: oorlogsvoering).....

Niet alleen het MIC lobbyt voor het opschroeven van het oorlogsbudget, maar ook politici als gouverneurs doen dat, daar het MIC voor werkgelegenheid zorgt...... Nog naast de vele politici die persoonlijk, of van wie familieleden/vrienden voordeel hebben bij een op volle toeren draaiend MIC........

Verder wijst Sotille op het feit, dat er naast het officiële budget voor 'defensie,' enorme kapitalen gaan naar zaken die alles met het militair-industrieel complex te maken hebben, maar buiten dit budget worden gehouden...... (dit gebeurd overigens ook in Nederland.....)

Lees het gedegen en ontluisterende artikel van Sotille, over een vereniging van terreurstaten, die de weg totaal kwijt is en grote terreur uitoefent over een deel van de wereld, waar ze niets, maar dan ook helemaal niets te zoeken hebben: 

The Truth About America’s Military-Industrial Complex Addiction

December 3, 2017 at 10:11 am

Written by JP Sottile

Polls show that Americans are tired of endless wars in faraway lands, but many cheer President Trump’s showering money on the Pentagon and its contractors, a paradox that President Eisenhower foresaw.

(CN) — The Military-Industrial Complex has loomed over America ever since President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of its growing influence during his prescient farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961. The Vietnam War followed shortly thereafter, and its bloody consequences cemented the image of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) as a faceless cadre of profit-seeking warmongers who’ve wrested control of the foreign policy. That was certainly borne out by the war’s utter senselessness … and by tales of profiteering by well-connected contractors like Brown & Root.

President Dwight Eisenhower delivering his farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961.

Over five decades, four major wars and a dozen-odd interventions later, we often talk about the Military-Industrial Complex as if we’re referring to a nefarious, flag-draped Death Star floating just beyond the reach of helpless Americans who’d generally prefer that war was not, as the great Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler aptly put it, little more than a money-making “racket.”

The feeling of powerlessness that the MIC engenders in “average Americans” makes a lot of sense if you just follow the money coming out of Capitol Hill. The Project on Government Oversight (POGO) tabulated all “defense-related spending” for both 2017 and 2018, and it hit nearly $1.1 trillion for each of the two years. The “defense-related” part is important because the annual National Defense Authorization Act, a.k.a. the defense budget, doesn’t fully account for all the various forms of national security spending that gets peppered around a half-dozen agencies.

It’s a phenomenon that noted Pentagon watchdog William Hartung has tracked for years. He recently dissected it into “no less than 10 categories of national security spending.” Amazingly only one of those is the actual Pentagon budget. The others include spending on wars, on homeland security, on military aid, on intelligence, on nukes, on recruitment, on veterans, on interest payments and on “other defense” — which includes “a number of flows of defense-related funding that go to agencies other than the Pentagon.”

Perhaps most amazingly, Hartung noted in TomDisptach that the inflation-adjusted “base” defense budgets of the last couple years is “higher than at the height of President Ronald Reagan’s massive buildup of the 1980s and is now nearing the post-World War II funding peak.” And that’s just the “base” budget, meaning the roughly $600 billion “defense-only” portion of the overall package. Like POGO, Hartung puts an annual price tag of nearly $1.1 trillion on the whole enchilada of military-related spending.

The MIC’s ‘Swamp Creatures’

To secure their share of this grandiloquent banquet, the defense industry’s lobbyists stampede Capitol Hill like well-heeled wildebeest, each jockeying for a plum position at the trough. This year, a robust collection of 208 defense companies spent $93,937,493 to deploy 728 “reported” lobbyists (apparently some go unreported) to feed this year’s trumped-up, $700 billion defense-only budget, according to OpenSecrets.org. Last year they spent $128,845,198 to secure their profitable pieces of the government pie.

And this reliable yearly harvest, along with the revolving doors connecting defense contractors with Capitol Hill, K Street and the Pentagon, is why so many critics blame the masters of war behind the MIC for turning war into a cash machine.

But the cash machine is not confined to the Beltway. There are ATM branches around the country. Much in the way it lavishes Congress with lobbying largesse, the defense industry works hand-in-glove with the Pentagon to spread the appropriations around the nation. This “spread the wealth” strategy may be equally as important as the “inside the Beltway” lobbying that garners so much of our attention and disdain.

Just go to U.S. Department of Defense’s contract announcement webpage on any weekday to get a good sense of the “contracts valued at $7 million or more” that are “announced each business day at 5 p.m.” A recent survey of these “awards” found the usual suspects like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics. The MIC was well-represented. But many millions of dollars were also “won” by companies most Americans have never heard of … like this sampling from one day at the end of October:

• Longbow LLC, Orlando Florida, got $183,474,414 for radar electronic units with the stipulation that work will be performed in Orlando, Florida.
• Gradkell Systems Inc., Huntsville, Alabama, got $75,000,000 for systems operations and maintenance at Fort Belvoir, Virginia
• Dawson Federal Inc., San Antonio, Texas; and A&H-Ambica JV LLC, Livonia, Michigan; and Frontier Services Inc., Kansas City, Missouri, will share a $45,000,000 for repair and alternations for land ports of entry in North Dakota and Minnesota.
• TRAX International Corp., Las Vegas, Nevada, got a $9,203,652 contract modification for non-personal test support services that will be performed in Yuma, Arizona, and Fort Greely, Alaska,
• Railroad Construction Co. Inc., Paterson, New Jersey, got a $9,344,963 contract modification for base operations support services to be performed in Colts Neck, New Jersey.
• Belleville Shoe Co., Belleville, Illinois, got $63,973,889 for hot-weather combat boots that will be made in Illinois.
• American Apparel Inc., Selma, Alabama, got $48,411,186 for combat utility uniforms that will be made in Alabama.
• National Industries for the Blind, Alexandria, Virginia, got a $12,884,595 contract modification to make and advanced combat helmet pad suspension system. The “locations of performance” are Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

The Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Defense Department, as viewed with the Potomac River and Washington, D.C., in the background. (Defense Department photo)

Sharing the Largesse

Clearly, the DoD* is large enough, and smart enough, to award contracts to companies throughout the 50 states. Yes, it is a function of the sheer size or, more forebodingly, the utter “pervasiveness” of the military in American life. But it is also a strategy. And it’s a tactic readily apparent in a contract recently awarded to Raytheon.

On Oct. 31, 2017, they got a $29,455,672 contract modification for missions systems equipment; computing environment hardware; and software research, test and development. The modification stipulates that the work will spread around the country to “Portsmouth, Rhode Island (46 percent); Tewksbury, Massachusetts (36 percent); Marlboro, Massachusetts (6 percent); Port Hueneme, California (5 percent); San Diego, California (4 percent); and Bath, Maine (3 percent).”

Frankly, it’s a brilliant move that began in the Cold War. The more Congressional districts that got defense dollars, the more votes the defense budget was likely to receive on Capitol Hill. Over time, it evolved into its own underlying rationale for the budget.

As veteran journalist William Greider wrote in the Aug. 16, 1984 issue of Rolling Stone, “The entire political system, including liberals as well as conservatives, is held hostage by the politics of defense spending. Even the most well intentioned are captive to it. And this is a fundamental reason why the Pentagon budget is irrationally bloated and why America is mobilizing for war in a time of peace.”

The peace-time mobilization Greider referred to was the Reagan build-up that, as William Hartung noted, is currently being surpassed by America’s “War on Terror” binge. Then, as now … the US was at peace at home, meddling around the world and running up a huge bill in the process. And then, as now … the spending seems unstoppable.

And as an unnamed “arms-control lobbyist” told Grieder, “It’s a fact of life. I don’t see how you can ask members of Congress to vote against their own districts. If I were a member of Congress, I might vote that way, too.”

Essentially, members of Congress act as secondary lobbyists for the defense industry by making sure their constituents have a vested interest in seeing the defense budget is both robust and untouchable.

But they are not alone. Because the states also reap what the Pentagon sows … and, in the wake of the massive post-9/11 splurge, they’ve begun quantifying the impact of defense spending on their economies. It helps them make their specific case for keeping the spigot open.

Enter the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which notes, or touts, that the Department of Defense (DoD) “operates more than 420 military installations in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.” Additionally, the NCSL is understandably impressed by a DoD analysis that found the department’s “$408 billion on payroll and contracts in Fiscal Year 2015” translated into “approximately 2.3 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).”

And they’ve become a clearinghouse for state governments’ economic impact studies of defense spending. Here’s a sampling of recent data compiled on the NSCL website:

• In 2015, for example, military installations in North Carolina supported 578,000 jobs, $34 billion in personal income and $66 billion in gross state product. This amounts to roughly 10 percent of the state’s overall economy.
• In 2014, Colorado lawmakers appropriated $300,000 in state funds to examine the comprehensive value of military activities across the state’s seven major installations. The state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs released its study in May 2015, reporting a total economic impact of $27 billion.
• Kentucky has also taken steps to measure military activity, releasing its fifth study in June 2016. The military spent approximately $12 billion in Kentucky during 2014-15. With 38,700 active duty and civilian employees, military employment exceeds the next largest state employer by more than 21,000 jobs.
• In Michigan, for example, defense spending in Fiscal Year 2014 supported 105,000 jobs, added more than $9 billion in gross state product and created nearly $10 billion in personal income. A 2016 study sponsored by the Michigan Defense Center presents a statewide strategy to preserve Army and Air National Guard facilities following a future Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round as well as to attract new missions. 

President Trump speaking at a Cabinet meeting on Nov. 1, 2017, with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Trump’s right and son-in-law Jared Kushner seated in the background.

Electoral Impact

But that’s not all. According to the DoD study cited above, the biggest recipients of DoD dollars are (in order): Virginia, California, Texas, Maryland and Florida. And among the top 18 host states for military bases, electorally important states like California, Florida and Texas lead the nation.

And that’s the real rub … this has an electoral impact. Because the constituency for defense spending isn’t just the 1 percent percent of Americans who actively serve in the military or 7 percent of Americans who’ve served sometime in their lives, but it is also the millions of Americans who directly or indirectly make a living off of the “defense-related” largesse that passes through the Pentagon like grass through a goose.

It’s a dirty little secret that Donald Trump exploited throughout the 2016 presidential campaign.

Somehow, he was able to criticize wasting money on foreign wars and the neoconservative interventionism of the Bushes, the neoliberal interventionism of Hillary Clinton, and, at the same time, moan endlessly about the “depleted” military despite “years of record-high spending.” He went on to promise a massive increase in the defense budget, a massive increase in naval construction and a huge nuclear arsenal.

And, much to the approval of many Americans, he’s delivered. A Morning Consult/Politico poll showed increased defense spending was the most popular among a variety of spending priorities presented to voters … even as voters express trepidation about the coming of another war. A pair of NBC News/Survey Monkey polls found that 76 percent of Americans are “worried” the United States “will become engaged in a major war in the next four years” and only 25 percent want America to become “more active” in world affairs.

More to the point, only 20 percent of Americans wanted to increase the troop level in Afghanistan after Trump’s stay-the-course speech in August, but Gallup’s three decade-long tracking poll found that the belief the U.S. spends “too little” on defense is at its highest point (37 percent) since it spiked after 9/11 (41 percent). The previous highpoint was 51 percent in 1981 when Ronald Reagan was elected in no small part on the promise of a major build-up.

So, if Americans generally don’t support wars or engagement in the world, why do they seem to reflexively support massive military budgets?

Frankly, look no further than Trump’s mantra of “jobs, jobs, jobs.” He says it when he lords over the sale of weapon systems to foreign powers or he visits a naval shipyard or goes to one of his post-election rallies to proclaim to “We’re building up our military like never before.” Frankly, he’s giving the people what they want. Although they may be war-weary, they’ve not tired of the dispersal system that Greider wrote about during Reagan’s big spree.

Ultimately, it means that the dreaded Military-Industrial Complex isn’t just a shadowy cabal manipulating policies against the will of the American people. Nor is the “racket” exclusive to an elite group of Deep State swamp things. Instead, the military and the vast economic network it feeds presents a far more “complex” issue that involves millions of self-interested Americans in much the way Eisenhower predicted, but few are willing to truly forsake.

* DoD: United States Department of Defense (ministerie van 'Defensie')

JP Sottile is a freelance journalist, radio co-host, documentary filmmaker and former broadcast news producer in Washington, D.C. He blogs at Newsvandal.com or you can follow him on Twitter.

Op-ed by JP Sottile / Republished with permission / Consortium News

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PS: het is ronduit een schandaal dat de reguliere westerse (massa-) media en het grootste deel van de westerse politiek buiten de VS, zo onbeschaamd durven te stellen dat de andere NAVO landen, zoals de VS meer moeten uitgeven aan defensie, terwijl zij dondersgoed weten, dat de VS zoveel uitgeeft aan defensie om haar belangen wereldwijd veilig te stellen. Het is als het pleiten voor enorme defensie uitgaven t.b.v. het koloniseren van landen die niet tot het westen behoren.......... Waarbij je niet moet vergeten, dat de grootste EU landen, Frankrijk, Groot--Brittannië, Frankrijk, Duitsland en Italië al 3 keer meer uitgeven aan 'defensie' dan Rusland, dat volkomen onterecht als de grote agressor wordt voorgesteld....... Terwijl niet Rusland maar de VS alleen deze eeuw al 4 illegale oorlogen is begonnen en verantwoordelijk is voor de moord op meer dan 2 miljoen mensen......