Related: Trump Wimps Out on War With Iran
They are still trying to goad him into doing it, but a careful reading of this Washington ComPost piece essentially confirms Trump's account.
(Btw, may God watch over Tucker for he really took a chunk out of Bolton last night, and he is no one to fool with. Keep your children close)
"‘We were cocked & loaded’: Trump’s account of Iran attack plan facing scrutiny" by John Hudson, Missy Ryan and Erin Cunningham Washington Post, June 21, 2019
President Trump on Friday described a nail-biting decision to call off an imminent attack on Iran, but the account was facing scrutiny from aides around him and military analysts questioning the sequence of events he laid out in tweets and statements.
It's as if he is Caesar, with enemies all around him and yet without a face.
Early in the day, the president said he called off the counterattack at the last minute because it would kill 150 people in retaliation for the downing of an unmanned surveillance drone, but administration officials said Trump was told earlier Thursday how many casualties could occur if a strike on Iran was carried out, and that he had given the green light to prepare for the operation Thursday morning.
IRAN, Page A11
As I'm turning in I'm thinking it was a green light to prepare. Not an actual go order.
The confusion reinforced concerns about the Trump administration’s credibility at a time when key US allies are already questioning its narrative about Iran’s culpability for a recent spate of attacks on oil tankers.
There is the old saying "Look whose talking'!"
The decision has divided his top advisers, with senior Pentagon officials opposing the decision to strike and national security adviser John Bolton strongly supporting it.
If that is true, we know who the troublemaker is -- could be laying the groundwork for Bolton to resign -- and the Pentagon, as loathe I am to credit the liars at the podium, understands the realities of overstretched armies and operations as did the German generals.
Iran said Friday that the United States had ‘‘no justification’’ for a retaliatory strike and vowed to respond ‘‘firmly’’ to any US military action.
Trump’s Friday morning tweets appeared to gloss over the fact that he was the one, as commander in chief, who had ordered the retaliation against Iran in the first place.
Little bit a low blow from the WaComPo, but above they claimed it was only preparation for retaliation. No go order.
I mean, you want to take swipes at the guy, fine; just don't do it in such a disingenuous fashion.
Trump administration officials, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security decisions, said the president approved the strikes after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier in the day shot down the Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk, a move Trump described as a ‘‘very big mistake,’’ but he later changed his mind, the officials said.
He didn't actually approve the strikes, and the anonymous officials are sure getting chummy with the pre$$, 'eh?
The commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace division said Friday that Iran had sent ‘‘warnings’’ to the drone before shooting it down. In an interview with Iran’s state-controlled broadcaster, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said a final warning was sent at 3:55 a.m. local time Thursday.
‘‘When it did not redirect its route and continued flying toward and into our territory, we had to shoot it at 4:05 a.m.,’’ he said. ‘‘Our national security is a red line.’’
It has to be, given that the United States has more or less encircled them with military bases.
He said Iran refrained from also shooting down a US P-8 patrol aircraft, with 35 people on board, that he asserted had accompanied the drone into Iranian airspace. His claim could not immediately be verified.
Perhaps that was the real attempt at provocation, and when Iran didn't take the bait Trump had to rush in and call it off; otherwise, he looks like a Pearl Harbor or Hitler type.
A senior US defense official said Friday morning that the Pentagon had Navy assets poised to strike in Iran if directed, including ships accompanying the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Those attacks could have included airstrikes with jets, or — more likely — Tomahawk cruise missiles, the official said.
I'm sure they did, they always do. They have standing protocols and such that war game out such scenarios that are their entire reason for being there. It's not like Trump just ordered the preparations -- don't forget that, he only ordered preparations -- out of air and everybody scrambled.
Trump’s initial tweets suggested that he had canceled his own order: ‘‘10 minutes before the strike I stopped it,’’ he said.
Think about it. His version is actually correct in terms of how the whole office works. He is presented with the options, and has to sign off on option A, B, or C. That's how the MIC controls whoever sits in the Oval Office. It's why the wars never end.
Later Friday, Trump offered a more detailed version of events, telling NBC’s Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press,” that he had not given a final go-ahead when military officials checked with him a half-hour before the strikes were scheduled to launch.
“So they came and they said, ‘Sir, we’re ready to go. We’d like a decision.’ I said, ‘I want to know something before you go. How many people will be killed, in this case Iranians?’ ” Trump told Todd. The president said that the officials said they needed to get back to him but eventually said that “approximately 150” Iranians might die.
Forget whether he was told before, he probably was. Might have even asked then and they lowballed it. Gonna be a cakewalk.
The important thing to recognize is his description of how they do this is accurate. It's like the Bay of Pigs all over again. So he's feeling the heat and pressure on it, spends a couple hours thinking about it, then he decides he doesn't want to do it and makes the call. This whole 10 minutes before is likely hyperbole, but so what? Is it any different than an hour in the grand scheme of things?
Trump challenged reports that planes were already in the air when he called off the strike, adding: “I didn’t think, I didn’t think it was proportionate.”
In the NBC interview, the president said he hadn’t given final approval to any strikes. ‘‘Nothing was green lighted until the very end because things change,’’ Trump said in the interview.
They couldn't have been in the air because if they are, they ain't coming back! You just don't get on the blower and say all craft pull up! They are on their way, and neither hell nor high water is going to recall them.
In his Twitter posts Friday morning, Trump wrote that ‘‘sanctions are biting & more added last night.’’ However, the Treasury Department did not add any new sanctions against Iran on Thursday night.
There was also confusion about how the United States and Iran were communicating during the crisis at a time when the two adversaries have very few diplomatic contacts.
The Reuters news agency reported Friday that Iranian officials said they received a message from Trump through Oman overnight warning that a US attack was imminent.
He blew the whistle on the provocation?
When asked about the report, a senior US administration official said the United States never sent a message to Iran via the Omanis. The country at the eastern corner of the Arabian peninsula has long been an interlocutor between the West and Iran, but not on this occasion, the official said.
‘‘It is a complete lie and propaganda from Iran,’’ the official said.
Oh, yeah, sure. If this government did do that I'm absolutely certain they would tell us, and if not, that the pre$$ would ferret it out.
Earlier Friday, the head of Iranian media services also told NBC News that the Reuters report was inaccurate. He said such a message from the United States was never sent and the content of the messages is also false.
Well, at least they agree on something!
It's a start!
The Federal Aviation Administration late Thursday barred US-registered aircraft from operating over the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, due to an increase in military activities and political tensions that it said might ‘‘place commercial flights at risk.’’
Related: "The warning appeared rooted in what happened 30 years ago after Operation Praying Mantis, a daylong naval battle in the Persian Gulf between American forces and Iran during the country’s long 1980s war with Iraq. On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes chased Iranian speedboats, which allegedly opened fire on a helicopter, into Iranian territorial waters, then mistook an Iran Air plane for an Iranian F-14. The Vincennes fired two missiles at the airplane, killing all aboard....."
That's the official, sanitized version for which George H.W. Bush would not apologize (I hope you're frying, Poppy); other versions closer to the truth contend that it was a war game gone awry, much like TWA 800, thus such cover stories need to be concocted.
In any case, you can see why the Iranians might be a little skittish about what is going on in the sky.
Several US and international carriers said that they had either canceled flights over Iranian airspace or were taking steps to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
Let's hope we don't get some kind of a MH-17 situation.
Have any planes gone missing lately?
The day’s events have left lawmakers in both parties confused about whether the United States remains on the precipice of a military conflict or if an imminent crisis had been averted.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said Friday that she was not informed of Trump’s plans to strike Iran, but while Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, expressed confidence in the president, several hawks in Congress said the only appropriate response would be a swift military counter-strike.
‘‘They’re trying to break our will and intimidate us to come to the negotiating table,’’ Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said of the Iranians.
Isn't that what Trump has been doing by pulling out of the deal and reimposing sanctions?
It's been more or less a stated goal of the policy, for cryin' out loud!
Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the chairwoman of the Republican Conference and one of the top Republicans in the House, lashed out Friday at Trump’s decision, comparing his actions to former President Barack Obama’s public waffling over striking Syria over its chemical weapons attacks in 2013.
“The failure to respond to this kind of direct provocation that we’ve seen now from the Iranians, in particular over the last several weeks, could in fact be a very serious mistake,” Cheney told Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host.
Some pedigree there, and it's a sign Trump did something right.
Of course, had he been serious about draining the swamp her father would be wearing an orange jumpsuit down in Cuba right about now.
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, blasted Trump after The New York Times reported his decision to order strikes and then pulled back.
“Donald Trump promised to bring our troops home,” Warren wrote late Thursday night on Twitter. “There is no justification for further escalating this crisis — we need to step back from the brink of war.”
The Iran Drone Crisis (cue music).
Trump’s comments on Thursday also left room for questions about how his administration planned to respond to Iran. Immediately following the drone’s downing, he tweeted that ‘‘Iran made a mistake,’’ but Trump said he found it ‘‘hard to believe’’ that the attack on the drone ‘‘was intentional’’ on the part of Iran’s top officials. He also noted that the aircraft was unmanned. ‘‘There was no man or woman in it,’’ he said. ‘‘It would have made a big difference’’ if a plane carrying people had been shot down. ‘‘It would have made a big, big difference.’’
But now they have the technology that they will reverse engineer to both make their own and set up a defense against ours.
The ambiguity Trump created, some argued, may now pose its own danger: Hard-liners in Iran could become emboldened to further test Trump, but at the same time he has raised expectations among some of his closest allies that he will let the missiles fly the next time.
The allies are Saudi Arabia and Israel.
“The risk of what Trump has done is that it conveys a confusing message to other parts of the world,” said Sir Peter Westmacott, a former British ambassador to Washington who was previously stationed as a diplomat in Iran. “Is he a blowhard? Is he secretly cautious — an Obama in wolf’s clothing? Or was new information brought to his attention that made him change his mind?”
Let's hope not, because Obama and his administration did a regime change operation in Libya, attempted one in Syria, signed off on the Saudi slaughter in Yemen, and was behind the putsch in the Ukraine that has Russia all riled up.
Iran’s strike on the US drone Thursday followed a number of recent incidents, including attacks on tankers, that American officials have depicted as part of an Iranian effort to hurt the United States and its allies in the region. The United States has continued its ‘‘maximum pressure’’ campaign against a country the Trump administration has identified as its main adversary in the Middle East.
Tehran has responded with defiance to the campaign, which was launched after Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and has included designating the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group and taking steps to cut off Iranian oil sales.
On Thursday, the European Union said officials from Germany, Britain, France, Russia, China, and Iran would meet next week to discuss strategies to salvage the nuclear pact despite renewed US sanctions and Tehran’s threat to exceed limits on its uranium stockpiles.
Notice who was not included?
The done incident occurred the week after two tankers, one Japanese and one Norwegian, were attacked in the Gulf of Oman. The Trump administration has blamed Iran for both incidents.
The latest incident came just days before acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan was due to step down. Shanahan, who this week withdrew from his confirmation process after news media, including The Washington Post, published reports about past family strife, is handing responsibility for the military to Mark Esper, who now serves as Army secretary.
Is he the former Raytheon executive?
Trump has previously authorized targeted strikes in the Middle East, including on government-controlled air bases in Syria. He was elected in 2016 promising to end American involvement in conflicts in the region.
At the same time, the Pentagon remains concerned about the potential for Iranian attacks on US military personnel, especially those stationed in Iraq. During a visit to Baghdad last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to relay a message for Iranian leaders that even one American death would result in a US counterattack.
A US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said US naval assets were trying to recover pieces of the drone.
The Iranians already have them on display, and evidence that the drone was, in fact, violating Iranian airspace.
The strike on the RQ-4 is much more significant than the recent attacks on Reapers. Each Global Hawk, which has a wingspan of 131 feet, is worth more than $100 million and is packed with sensors and able to fly at altitudes of more than 55,000 feet to observe broad areas for periods that can stretch longer than a day.
The Global Hawk downed on Thursday was an older ‘‘demonstrator’’ model, according to another U.S. official, that had been transferred from the Air Force to the Navy to carry out a mission known as Broad Area Maritime Surveillance. The Pentagon has since begun testing a newer cousin, the MQ-4C Triton. Neither version carries weapons.....
The Iranians didn't know that.
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Even when Trump is right he is wrong, according to the Globe:
"Trump’s wrong-headed approach on Iran
The United States and Iran are now engaged in brinkmanship that could break out into actual military conflict unless both sides step back. On Thursday, President Trump called off air raids he had approved on three Iranian sites. According to the president, he did so after learning those strikes could have claimed as many as 150 lives, which he considered a disproportionate response to Iran’s downing of an unpiloted US drone.
If so, that was wise on the president’s part. That said, it seems unlikely Trump would learn or inquire about the probable death toll minutes before the raid was to be carried out. So that claim may involve a degree of international theatrics.
I really don't care, as long as it didn't happen.
Still, it’s clear this country is uncomfortably close to a military confrontation with Iran — one that could plunge the region into broader conflict, causing attacks on US personnel and allies in other parts of the region. Although Trump’s hawkish advisers are urging military action against Iran, air strikes or a broader war is both unnecessary and unwise.
Then stop beating the war drums for them.
After all, when Trump assumed the presidency, our long-troubled relationship with Iran was in a manageable place. After several years of painstaking negotiation, Iran and the United States had taken an important step toward detente by embracing a nuclear deal. The accord saw Iran, in exchange for sanctions relief, agree to restrictions on and inspections of its nuclear energy program, designed to keep it at least a year away from a breakout push to a nuclear bomb.
Iran was upholding its part of the agreement. Indeed, Trump’s rationale for withdrawing from the multiparty pact wasn’t that Iran was violating the agreement, but rather that because the agreement’s restrictions weren’t permanent, Iran could develop a bomb once they expired. Iranophobes overestimate the danger there; longer-term inspections provisions over Iran’s entire nuclear cycle would probably have alerted the International Atomic Energy Agency to any covert attempt to build a bomb.
They wouldn't have probably alerted them at all. Building a nuclear bomb can not be done in a bathtub. They would need to build facilities that could not be kept secret, with the activity of heavy equipment use being the tell.
I know I'm kind of nitpicking over semantics, but it is important regarding the impression the paper leaves on the issue. It's false and distorted, even when doin' good.
Now Iran has announced that it will exceed the agreement’s uranium stockpile and enrichment limits unless European nations do more to help an economy suffering under US sanctions. It also seems likely that Iran, or elements within that country’s poorly understood power structure, has decided to provoke international worries about war as a way to bring pressure on the Trump administration to ease sanctions or to prompt sanctions-offsetting action from other nations. That best explains the mining attacks, likely by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, against tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Iran has denied responsibility there; there’s no doubt that Iran downed the US drone, however, though the two sides disagree over whether it was in Iranian or international airspace.
They are blaming Iran for those false flag provocations while swallowing the official story hook, line, and sinker.
Have they learned nothing at all since 2003?
So with its sanctions-backed pursuit of an iron-clad assurance that Iran will never pursue a nuclear weapon, Trump and his team have landed the world right back in the very tension-filled situation the nuclear agreement had largely addressed.
He's being pushed, and they know by whom.
The president is already facing warnings by hawks that he has shown weakness instead of strength here, and that he must teach Iran a lesson. The president himself clearly doesn’t want a military conflict, however, and that instinct is right.
Still, if he’s to avoid war, Trump must see the bigger picture. Instead of bending Iran to his will, his maximum-pressure policy has caused that nation to lash out.
Rather than respond in kind, Trump should declare a cooling-off period, rejoin the other parties to the Iran deal — Britain, Russia, France, China, Germany, and the European Union — and reengage with Iran.
He wasn't invited.
World leaders, Capitol Hill Democrats, and Republicans who understand how counterproductive a military conflict with Iran would be should encourage those instincts — and resist any military action based on these incidents.
There’s no perfect answer with Iran, but it’s often better to live with lower-grade antagonisms than exacerbate those tensions into an outright confrontation.
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I'm so glad they have come around to opposing outright hostility in favor of covert destabilization mechanisms:
"Hong Kong protests resume as police headquarters is surrounded" by Daniel Victor New York Times, June 21, 2019
HONG KONG — Thousands of protesters blocked a major thoroughfare and surrounded the headquarters of Hong Kong’s police force Friday, putting new pressure on the city’s leadership over an unpopular bill that has thrown the territory into a political crisis.
The demonstrators, mostly teenagers and people in their 20s dressed in black, filled the main roads around the police complex in stifling 90-degree weather, chanting calls for the authorities to release protesters who were arrested last week. The government shut down its headquarters for the day, citing security concerns, and the legislature canceled meetings.
It was the latest of several mass demonstrations in the span of two weeks that have paralyzed parts of downtown Hong Kong, in scenes reminiscent of the 2014 pro-democracy Umbrella Movement protests, which saw major districts occupied for more than two months.
When they give it a color or a catchy name and it is glowing presented in my pre$$, you can rest assured it is a controlled-opposition destabilization effort by the CIA (Yellow Vests being the exception to the rule).
Protesters chanted slogans outside the police headquarters in Hong Kong on Friday. (ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images)
Oddly, the 2014 protests coincide with the Obama-sponsored coup in the Ukraine -- a pincer of sorts that prepositioned them for the next round we are now witnessing.
The protesters have felt emboldened since Carrie Lam, the city’s chief executive, indefinitely suspended the contentious extradition bill last Saturday. As many as 2 million protesters poured into the streets the next day, organizers contend.
The protesters are not satisfied with Lam’s suspension of the bill, which would allow extraditions to mainland China. Instead, the protesters want Lam to withdraw the law fully.
The alarm over the bill underscores many Hong Kong residents’ rising anxiety and frustration over the erosion of civil liberties that have set the city apart from the rest of China.
“This is Hong Kong, not China,” declared a large, white banner displayed along the side of a pedestrian bridge on Friday.
That is secessionist talk, and the last thing we need is another Taiwan.
Maybe the British can take it back:
"British Foreign Office Minister Mark Field apologized but defended his actions after he forcibly remove a female protester from a City of London dinner on Thursday evening. Opposition politicians demanded Field should be fired after footage on social media showed him grabbing the woman, one of about 40 environmental protesters who interrupted a speech by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond. Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis told ITV that Field’s actions were ‘‘very hard to defend’’ and promised an investigation. ‘‘There was no security present and I was for a split-second genuinely worried she might have been armed. As a result I grasped the intruder firmly in order to remove her from the room as swiftly as possible,’’ Field said in a statement. ‘‘I deeply regret this episode and unreservedly apologize to the lady concerned for grabbing her, but in the current climate I felt the need to act decisively to close down the threat to the safety of those present.’’ Field said he had referred himself to the Cabinet Office for a ruling on whether he breached the ministerial code after campaigners from the Greenpeace group burst into the Egyptian Hall in Mansion House, where Hammond had just started his speech focusing on his legacy at the Treasury and Brexit. A video posted by ITV showed Field appearing to push the protester against a wall and grab her by the neck and forcing her out of the hall. Dawn Butler, equality spokeswoman for the opposition Labour Party, said on Twitter that Field should be suspended or sacked ‘‘due to violence against women.’’ Hannah Martin, who works for Greenpeace and joined the protest, told the BBC the group were peaceful protesters and wanted to deliver an alternative speech emphasizing the need for action on climate change. The protest was led by women deliberately to reduce the sense of threat, she said. ‘‘What he did was completely disproportionate and unacceptable really, particularly for a sitting member of Parliament,’’ Martin said. ‘‘She was carrying no weapon, there was nobody else in the room that felt it necessary to respond in that way.’’
Who let them in in the first place?
The protesters began their day with a sit-in outside the Legislative Council building, but after several hours they mobilized to block streets. Kenneth Kwan, a 19-year-old student, said he had helped to shut down a major road because he thought it would make a stronger statement than a mere sit-in would.
“It’s a helpless feeling, and we don’t know how to make our government respond to our needs,” he said through a face mask, standing in an eastbound lane of Harcourt Road. The protesters, he said, needed to keep pressure on the government until their demands were met.
We feel the same way over here, but aren't in the streets unless we are hired and controlled opposition (think gays, migrants, and global warmers; there is no antiwar movement to speak of).
By midmorning, the protesters had set up barricades at police headquarters blocking an entrance and demanded a meeting with the police chief. “Shame on dirty cops,” they chanted.
Are they blowing away their citizens, too?
Joshua Wong, a key leader of the 2014 pro-democracy protests, who was released from prison on Monday, shouted slogans decrying the authorities for having previously labeled the June 12 demonstration a riot, which suggested serious potential legal ramifications for people who participated in it.
“No riots, only tyranny,” he chanted, as others followed.
Yeah, don't give them an excuse to impose it.
The police urged the demonstrators to disperse, saying they had prevented them from responding to dozens of emergency calls. Yolanda Yu, a police spokeswoman, said at a news conference steps from where protesters were gathered that a team of negotiators would be sent to persuade them to leave. The crowd shouted over her.
The police were “not clearing the grounds,” Yu said. “We respect the people to express their views in a peaceful manner.”
That's China, right?
Throughout the day, police maintained a low-level presence at the protest sites, including their own headquarters, apparently trying to avoid raising tensions. Local news media reported that the protesters had blocked all of the street-level entrances at the police complex.
Above all, the Chines government values harmony.
By nightfall, thousands of demonstrators were still gathered there. The city government issued a statement urging protesters to be peaceful and reasonable, saying a number of public services had been disrupted. Demonstrators had filled the lobbies of at least two other government buildings during the day.
Think Occupy, American, and at that point my print copy went home.
The web version stayed behind:
“Although there were fewer participants today, we could occupy the police headquarters and the Revenue Tower, which we had never done before,” said Sunny Cheung, a 23-year-old university student, referring to one of the government buildings. “We will not retreat, nor will we give in, until the government takes our demands into account.”
The protesters had vowed to resume street demonstrations after a set of demands went unmet by a Thursday deadline. Aside from the scrapping of the bill, the protesters also called for Lam’s resignation, the release of people arrested during clashes with the police last week and an investigation into the police’s use of batons, tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters in clashes on June 12.
The demonstrations on Friday signaled that the fight was not over for Lam, the embattled leader, and foreshadowed more upheaval in the city.
“To not keep even the central government headquarters open, to not keep the police headquarters open, it’s a big humiliation,” said Willy Lam, a political analyst who teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It means basically she has lost the ability to govern effectively.”
The massive outcry over the extradition bill this month prompted Lam to deliver a personal, televised public apology on Tuesday for having proposed it in the first place, but she did not agree to resign or withdraw the bill entirely, as many protesters have demanded. Instead, she said that work on it would not resume in Hong Kong’s legislature as long as there was a public dispute over the bill’s content.
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Waiting for the inevitable power cuts, and it's all happening while their President was out of the country.
"China’s Xi pushes economic reform at North Korea summit" by Christopher Bodeen Associated Press, June 21, 2019
BEIJING — Chinese President Xi Jinping offered encouragement for North Korea’s focus on economic development in a speech in Pyongyang, turning to a topic Beijing has long pressed with its Communist neighbor amid wider concerns over the North’s nuclear weapons program.
In an address at a banquet Thursday night, Xi noted that the nation under leader Kim Jong Un had ‘‘initiated a new strategic line of economic development and improving people’s livelihoods, raising socialist construction in the country to a new high tide,’’ according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
Xi left North Korea early Friday afternoon, Chinese state media reported. An image posted on the mobile app of state broadcaster CCTV showed people waving at his Air China Boeing 747 on the tarmac at the airport in Pyongyang.
Before leaving, Xi, accompanied by Kim and their wives, laid a wreath at a memorial to Chinese soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War. China’s intervention in the conflict prevented a rout of North Korean forces by troops from the United States and others under United Nations command.
‘‘We will pass down the China-North Korea friendship from generation to generation, consolidate and develop the two countries’ socialist cause, better enrich our citizens and advance regional peace, stability, development and prosperity,’’ Xi was quoted as saying.
The North’s long-moribund economy has shown some recent improvements, but it remains heavily dependent on aid — mainly from China — and food security is a constant concern. China has agreed to UN economic sanctions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs but is wary of any measures that could push its economy toward collapse, potentially unleashing instability and chaos on its border.
Just eat a late lunch.
Xi’s speech also touched on the nuclear issue, saying all sides agreed to ‘‘stick to peace talks so as to make even greater contributions to peace, stability and prosperity in the region and the wider world,’’ Xinhua said.
North Korean state media said Friday that Xi and Kim held broad discussions over the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and reached a shared understanding on the issues they discussed.
‘‘The supreme leaders . . . broadly exchanged their opinions on the political situation of the Korean Peninsula and other serious international and regional issues,’’ said the Korean Central News Agency report. They assessed that deepening their relationship was in line with the ‘‘mutual interest of the two countries in face of serious and complicated changes in the environment and would be favorable for the region’s peace, stability and development,’’ it said.
Or they are coordinating for the inevitable US attack.
In South Korea, the presidential Blue House welcomed Xi’s visit to North Korea, saying it believes his talks with Kim will help promote peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
They have no interest in hostilities, either, and much interest in some sort of unification.
Kim told Xi on Thursday that he has not received a desired response from Washington and that the United States should meet North Korea halfway, according to Chinese state media.
That's called compromising, and the US will have none of it.
The web version also stayed long at the meeting:
Xi is expected to meet with President Trump next week in Japan and could pass him a message from Kim about the nuclear negotiations.
Following Thursday’s banquet, the leaders and their wives attended a mass performance of music, dance, and calisthenics at a packed 110,000-seat stadium.
The spectacle featured gymnasts, dancers, and flip card-holding spectators performing in precise unison — at one point producing a huge image of a waving Chinese flag in the stands, then flipping their cards to show the North Korean flag.
Xi and Kim waved to cheering crowds during the performance, dubbed ‘‘Invincible Socialism,’’ according to KCNA. Performing groups sang Chinese favorites and put on what KCNA termed ‘‘the peculiar display of Chinese folk dances.’’ The show ended with red fireworks over the May Day Stadium.
‘‘Over more than a year, the North Korean side has taken many positive measures to avoid escalation of the situation and manage and control the peninsular situation, but it hasn’t received an active response from the relevant party,’’ Kim told Xi on Thursday, according to CCTV.
Xi was expected to endorse North Korea’s calls for an incremental disarmament process. China is also pushing for a resumption of six-nation disarmament talks it had hosted but which broke down a decade ago.....
It would be better than nothing at all or an escalation, right?
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A photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (right) greeting Chinese President Xi Jinping upon his arrival at Pyongyang This week.(KCNA VIA KNS/AFP/Getty Images)
Looks like they are preparing the invasion of Japan, doesn't it?
Or will they wheel south?
"At least 30 people including children were killed in a fire that swept through a house that doubled as a match factory in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, a disaster official said Friday. Irwan Syahri, from the local disaster mitigation agency in Langkat district, said the dead included three children. Many of the victims were burned beyond recognition, he said. TV footage showed the burned-out structure, its floor littered with twisted metal, blackened corrugated-iron roofing, and other debris. Faisal Riza, whose wife died in the fire, said the workers at the business were all women, some of whom had children with them. The house owner, an elderly woman identified only as Ros, told MetroTV that she had rented the property for the past four years to a businessman from Medan. Another man, Sofyan, said his wife and 10-year-old daughter died in the fire and were preventing from escaping by a locked front door that was also blocked by equipment. The fire started at the rear of the property, he and Riza said. Millions of Indonesians work in unsafe conditions in informal or poorly regulated industries and accidents and fatalities are common. A police spokesman said the cause of the match factory fire was still unclear....."
All it took was a spark.
"Sydney, the largest city in a country acutely vulnerable to global warming, moved on Friday to declare a climate emergency, joining hundreds of local governments around the world in calling for urgent steps to combat the crisis, some in the face of inaction by national politicians. The declaration does not include any major new actions, but Mayor Clover Moore said it was important. Australia, home to some of the most extreme natural environments on the planet, is recovering from the hottest summer on record — a season of raging wildfires, burning fruit on trees, and crippling drought in farming regions, but in national elections last month, voters rejected the major party calling for stronger action on climate change, delivering a surprise victory to the incumbent conservative government, which has resisted proposals to sharply reduce carbon emissions. The conservative coalition was propelled to victory in part by support in the state of Queensland, where the state government cleared the way this month for a fiercely contested coal mine. Federal action has been similarly lacking in the United States, where President Trump has called climate change a hoax and moved to withdraw the country from the Paris climate accord. In that void, state and local governments have taken up the mantle of action, with lawmakers in New York state this week approving a plan to virtually eliminate carbon emissions by 2050. New York joined a half dozen Western states like California in setting a goal of a carbon-free future....."
Would bringing the troops home help?
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Analysis: Facing intensifying confrontation with Iran, Trump has few appealing options" by David E. Sanger New York Times, June 22, 2019
President Trump’s last-minute decision to pull back from a retaliatory strike on Iran underscored the absence of appealing options available to him as Tehran races toward its next big challenge to the United States: building up and further enriching its stockpile of nuclear fuel.
Two weeks of flare-ups over the attacks on oil tankers and the downing of a US surveillance drone, administration officials said, have overshadowed a larger, more complex and fast-intensifying showdown over containing Iran’s nuclear program.
So the provocations were meant to force this issue to the surface, huh?
In meetings in the White House Situation Room in recent days, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo contended that the potential for Iran to move closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon was the primary threat from Tehran, one participant said, a position echoed by Trump on Twitter on Friday. Left unsaid was that Iran’s moves to bolster its nuclear fuel program stemmed in substantial part from the president’s decision last year to pull out of the 2015 international accord, while insisting that Tehran abide by the strict limits imposed on its nuclear activities.
Now, with the immediate crisis over the drone abating, Trump has dispatched envoys to the Middle East to consult with allies as he and his national security team appear focused on a two-tier strategy for confronting the nuclear issue. First, they intend to maintain and intensify the sanctions the United States has used to squeeze Iran’s economy, chiefly by choking off its ability to sell oil to the world.
I'm tired of being played, how about you?
During White House deliberations, Pompeo and others made the case that Tehran’s lashing out in the Persian Gulf was in direct response to the sanctions. He and Trump are telling allies and members of Congress that Iran’s leaders will eventually no longer be able to tolerate the devastating economic and domestic political costs, perhaps forcing them to agree to a new, tougher nuclear accord.
Which he can then pull out of?
They had a deal, or so everyone thought.
At the same time, administration officials have signaled that they continue to weigh more aggressive options, including military strikes and cyberattacks. Those options could come into play if Iran does not buckle under economic pressure or follows through on the warning it issued on Monday: that it would breach the 2015 accord’s limits on how much low-enriched nuclear fuel it can hold, and that it was pointedly leaving open the possibility of further enriching the fuel.
I guess we are screwing around with everybody, huh?
Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John R. Bolton, arrived in Israel on Saturday for a previously scheduled meeting with his Israeli and Russian counterparts to discuss what the White House calls “regional security.”
Everybody getting their marching orders from the top.
While there he will meet with the head of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission and other officials who, during the Obama administration, repeatedly ordered practice bombings to simulate taking out Iran’s nuclear facilities. A decade ago, Israel joined the United States in conducting a sophisticated cyberattack against Iran’s major enrichment site.
According the MBC this morning, the cyberattacks began last week and in the clip I saw, Bolton declared very, very forcefully and ominously, that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon (good thing they aren't building one), and even NBC guy they brought in for analysis was buying the official story on the downing and tanker attacks and citing Iranian aggression.
As Iran vows to gradually kick its nuclear production back into gear, both options are being revisited, officials say, in case Iran carries through its declared nuclear plans.
It “might not be a big deal,” said Philip H. Gordon, a former State Department official now at the Council on Foreign Relations, “but it’s a slippery slope,” but stopping those activities, with a military attack or the kind of complicated online sabotage that the United States and Israel conducted a decade ago, would carry huge risks, and this time, the element of surprise would be gone.
Yeah, we won't be the Japanese at Pearl Harbor, but military strikes are still on the table:
"President Trump said Saturday he’s still considering military action. The president’s comments came as Iran summoned the United Arab Emirates’ top envoy to Tehran to protest the neighboring Arab nation’s decision to allow the United States to use a base there to launch the drone that Iran says entered its airspace, the report by the official IRNA news agency said. British diplomat Andrew Murrison planned to visit Iran on Sunday and call for the ‘‘urgent de-escalation in the region and raise U.K. and international concerns about Iran’s regional conduct’’ during talks with Tehran’s government, Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement Saturday....."
I was actually hopeful that everyone was going to Tehran, but after reading that British scolding, not so much. Forget the provocation, it's adopt the US narrative and official garbage and full steam ahead. Forgotten is violation of Iranian territory, the trick Bush told Blair about, paint a plane UN colors and hope Saddam shoots at it, and where is the UN anyway -- not that it would matter since they are unable to make peace).
Is that why Iran hasn't gone there?
The State Department’s Iran coordinator, Brian Hook, is also in the Gulf, trying to coordinate a response — and perhaps an opening for talks with Tehran — with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait. and Bahrain, all among Iran’s greatest rivals. The State Department did not say whether he would go to Oman, which acted as the back channel for opening nuclear negotiations during the Obama administration.
Looks like WAR to me.
Some leading members of Congress and current and former diplomats say the bet that sanctions will drive the Iranians to the negotiating table — and force them into a more restrictive deal than they gave Obama — is a fantasy.
“The question is how do the Iranians react now,” said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. “Will they give up or act much more aggressively to get out of this dilemma? What we are seeing is that they act more aggressively.”
And thus the next horrible false flag on U.S. shores can be blamed on them (Northmoor = Northwoods).
Iran, he said, is practiced at both tolerating international isolation and carrying out asymmetric warfare — finding targets it can hit despite having far less traditional military ability than the United States — and can be expected to ramp up counterpressure before the loss of oil revenue completely cripples it.
Two weeks ago Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected any negotiation with the United States.
“Khamenei has made it clear in his speeches: He sees an American plot to weaken Iran and lure it into negotiations,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution. “And so after a long waiting period, they are choosing this moment to escalate, so far in a carefully calibrated way. But they have many more options.”
In fact, while Iran is weaker economically than it was a year ago, it has developed skills it did not possess during the last major nuclear crisis. It can strike ships with more precision and shoot planes out of the air. It now has a major cyber corps, which over the last seven years has paralyzed US banks, infiltrated a dam in the New York suburbs, and attacked a Las Vegas casino.
They left their fingerprints.
These abilities have altered the risk calculations, making the problem Trump faces with Iran even more vexing than those that confronted President George W. Bush or Obama.
The least-fraught course for the United States is to bank on sanctions eventually working. Under tighter sanctions, Iran’s economy has contracted sharply and inflation is running at 50%, but sanctions themselves are not a solution; they are a means to getting a country to change its behavior.
That is the definition of terrorism: create suffering within the population so they will demand a regime change.
Good thing AmeriKa doesn't do that or interfere with another country's political processes while allowing democracy to flourish.
If he cannot make progress by relying on sanctions, Trump will almost certainly find himself being pressured, perhaps by Saudi Arabia or Israel, to “solve” the nuclear problem by taking out Iran’s facilities.....
I'll leave you with that comforting thought, and how long can he stand up to it before buckling?
The countdown clock says under 10 minutes.
--more--"
It looks like both were on a collision course as Trump is trying to rally his base of white MAGA-voting uncles, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, called Trump on Friday night and asked him to call off the raids because they would be ‘incredibly traumatizing’ while the Globe's resident dissident is writing about the border crisis.
Maybe the Democrats will get lucky and win the presidency so we can have our demands unmet again, and with that, dear readers, I am totally out of Ideas, dear reader:
"Prague won’t have seen anything like this since the protests of 1989, which brought down the communist regime in what was then Czechoslovakia. Some 400,000 have signed a petition calling on Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis to step down over fraud allegations and subsidies paid to his former companies, and hundreds of thousands are expected at a rally in Prague on Sunday to urge the populist billionaire to stand down. The businessman-turned-populist politician is standing firm, though, and points to record low unemployment rate....."
Wow, deja vu!
