3 Major Developments Happening Right Now That Could Lead To Global War - By Michael Snyder -
It has been a seemingly quiet summer in America so far, but meanwhile we are witnessing major developments on the other side of the globe that could change everything. We are so close to war, and yet most people have absolutely no idea what is happening.
In fact, if you showed most Americans a blank map of the world, they couldn't even pick out Iran, Hong Kong or North Korea.
There is so much apathy in our society today, and so little knowledge about foreign affairs, and so most people simply do not grasp the importance of the drama that is playing out right in front of our eyes.
But if a major war does erupt, none of our lives are ever going to be the same again. So I am going to keep writing about these things, because I believe that we have reached an absolutely critical juncture in our history.
Let's start with a stunning new development in the Middle East.
Even though most Americans do not realize it, Israel and Iran are already shooting at each other. Israel has been striking Iranian military targets inside Syria for months, but now the rules of engagement have apparently changed, because in recent days the IDF has started conducting airstrikes against Iranian targets inside Iraq...
In an unprecedented move, Israel has expanded its attacks on Iranian targets, with two bombing strikes on Iran-run bases in Iraq in the space of ten days. The Israeli Air Force carried out the military strikes with F-35 jets, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, an Arabic-language newspaper published in London. News of the attacks comes just a day after the US and Israel tested a missile defence system which used targets "similar to Iranian nuclear missiles".
The reason this is being called "an unprecedented move" is because this is the very first time since 1981 that we have seen Israeli airstrikes inside Iraq.
Needless to say, these latest airstrikes have absolutely enraged the Iranians. It looks like the Israeli government has determined that any Iranian military targets outside of Iran itself are fair game, and it is probably only a matter of time before Iran strikes back in a major way.
And if Iran ultimately decides that one of the best ways to strike back is to start hitting targets inside of Israel, that could be the spark that sets off a major war in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, it appears that something major is brewing in China.
The political protests that have made global headlines in Hong Kong in recent weeks have greatly angered the Chinese government. They were probably hoping that the protests would quickly subside and soon be forgotten, but that hasn't happened.
So now China is faced with a decision. If such protests were happening elsewhere in China, they would be brutally crushed, but Hong Kong is a special case.
If the Chinese are too harsh with the protesters in Hong Kong, that could turn world opinion against them, but if they do nothing that could encourage protests to start happening in other area of the country.
In the end, the Chinese will probably do what they always do, and that means crushing the opposition. And Zero Hedge is reporting that Chinese forces are currently gathering "on Hong Kong's border"...
Massive anti-Beijing protests which have gripped Hong Kong over the past month, and have become increasingly violent as both an overwhelmed local police force and counter-protesters have hit back with force, are threatening to escalate on a larger geopolitical scale after the White House weighed in this week.
With China fast losing patience, there are new reports of a significant build-up of Chinese security forces on Hong Kong's border, as Bloomberg reports:
The White House is monitoring what a senior administration official called a congregation of Chinese forces on Hong Kong's border.
Technically, Hong Kong is considered to be part of China, but it has always been allowed wide latitude to govern itself ever since it was handed over to the Chinese.
But now things could be about to change dramatically, and some are even using the word "invade" to describe what is about to happen. For example, just consider this tweet from Kyle Bass...
"The White House is monitoring a buildup of chinese forces on Hong Kong's border, a senior administration official said." Here we go..the moment the pla army marches from Shenzhen, it's over. china's army is going to invade HK. It's inevitable. #hk #china
If Chinese forces start pouring into Hong Kong, the Trump administration is going to throw a fit. Relations between our two nations are already the worst that they have been since the end of the Korean War, and the situation in Hong Kong could potentially push things over the edge.
In fact, the Chinese have already been placing the blame for the protests in Hong Kong squarely on the U.S. government...
"It's clear that Mr. Pompeo has put himself in the wrong position and still regards himself as the head of the CIA," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a news briefing. "He might think that violent activities in Hong Kong are reasonable because after all, this is the creation of the U.S."
China's position has been to recently declare the protests going "far beyond" what's legal and "peaceful" amid clashes with police.
We shall see what happens, but this certainly has the potential to push the United States and China much, much closer to conflict.
On top of everything else, North Korea just fired two more missiles into the ocean...
North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles early on Wednesday, the South Korean military said, only days after it launched two other missiles intended to pressure South Korea and the United States to stop upcoming military drills.
The latest launches were from the Hodo peninsula on North Korea's east coast, the same area from where last week's were conducted, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement. It said it was monitoring in case of additional launches.
The North Koreans are greatly alarmed by the joint military drills that the U.S. and South Korea will soon be conducting, and whenever they get greatly upset about something they seem to express that displeasure by firing off more missiles.
Yes, President Trump and Kim Jong-Un have been talking, but things remain extremely tense and it wouldn't take very much at all for a major conflict to erupt on the Korean peninsula.
Without a doubt, we live at a time of "wars and rumors of wars", and those with discerning eyes can see what is happening.
The chess pieces are slowly being moved into place, and the combatants are almost ready.
Any number of things could ultimately spark World War 3, and once it begins it is going to be nearly impossible to stop.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad: "The Circle of Fire is Expanding" - by Khaled Abu Toameh -
As Egypt, the United Nations and other parties are pursuing their efforts to prevent an all-out military confrontation in the Gaza Strip, Hamas and its allies are forging ahead in their development of various types of weapons with which to attack Israel.
The Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, the second largest armed group in the Gaza Strip after Hamas, recently revealed how it has managed to upgrade the rocket launchers that are being used to attack Israel.
According to the Islamic Jihad's military wing, Al-Quds Brigades, it began developing its rocket launchers in 2007, when Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip after overthrowing the regime of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Twelve years seems like a good time to take stock. What are the achievements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip? They boast about three: improving military capabilities, smuggling weapons and investing millions of dollars in constructing terror tunnels. Iran's money goes to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad war machine -- nothing else. Not hospitals, not schools, and not jobs for unemployed Palestinians.
Take, for example, a report released this week by Islamic Jihad's Al-Quds Brigades, which presents the development of rocket launchers as one of the group's major achievements in the past 12 years. "The rocket launchers of the Al-Quds Brigades will remain one of the most important elements of the power we possess," the report boasts. "The rockets will continue to serve as a nightmare haunting the leaders of the [Israeli] enemy."
The report says that since the inception of the Islamic Jihad, it "has used many weapons and missiles, including knives, bombs, submachine guns, explosive belts and homemade rockets."
The report adds that the group has over the years made significant achievements in the field of manufacturing and developing missiles to a point where it is now capable of using modern rocket launchers to attack "Zionist cities and settlements."
According to the report, the Al-Quds Brigades conducted its first test on the rocket launchers in January 2007, six months before the Gaza Strip fell into the hands of Hamas. "The engineers of the Al-Quds Brigades have since been introducing improvements on this weapon," it said.
Four years later, the report reveals, the group introduced its advanced truck-mounted rocket launchers. Then, it used the trucks to launch five Grad missiles at Israel.
In 2012, the Islamic Jihad says it upgraded the missiles to include C8K rockets that were fired at Israeli towns and cities near the border with the Gaza Strip. Two years later, the group managed to increase the range of its rockets, and for the first time targeted the city of Netanya, north of Tel Aviv, according to the report.
Islamic Jihad says that its rockets are today capable of striking Ben Gurion Airport, the Nuclear Research Center in Dimona, the Haifa Oil Refineries and Ashdod Port. The group's message to Israel: "The circle of fire is expanding."
Islamic Jihad's latest threats coincide with statements by the group's leaders that Israel had better abide by the terms of ceasefire understandings reached earlier this year with the Gaza-based factions. This is interesting. On the one hand, Islamic Jihad wants Israel to commit to these understandings. On the other hand, the group is saying that it is continuing to manufacture and upgrade new types of weapons that will be used to attack Israel.
It seems, then, that for Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the ceasefire understandings, reached under the auspices of Egypt and the UN, are meant to give the Gaza-based groups a chance to continue building their military capabilities without having to worry about Israeli retaliatory measures.
Apparently, Islamic Jihad and Hamas do not perceive the ceasefire as an opportunity to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. From all accounts, they are not planning to seize the lull in the fighting to brainstorm on ways to lower the crippling unemployment rate or raise the abysmal standard of living.
Such features of basic decent governance have not found their way onto the agenda of these two groups for the past 12 years. And evidently, they are not making it onto the agenda in the foreseeable future. No time for that: the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are otherwise occupied -- with the destruction of Israel; the Palestinian people be damned.
While Hamas and Islamic Jihad are talking to Egyptians and UN envoys about a ceasefire with Israel, the leaders of the two groups are also continuing to seek financial and military support from Iran to prepare for war against Israel.
Last month, a senior Hamas delegation, headed by military leader Saleh Arouri, visited Tehran and met with Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranian media quoted Khamenei as expressing satisfaction over the "progress" the Palestinians have made in the past few years. The "progress" Khamenei is talking about is not related to the building of a new hospital or school or a medical breakthrough in the Gaza Strip. Instead, the "progress" the Palestinians have achieved - according to Iran's Supreme Leader - is that "while the Palestinians used to fight [Israel] with rocks, today they possess precise rockets."
Arouri, for his part, was quoted as saying during his visit to Tehran that the "Palestinian resistance and Iran are in one front in facing Israel."
Obviously, Hamas and Islamic Jihad believe that they can have it both ways and continue to play everyone for fools. The same Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders who are telling the Egyptians and UN envoys that they are keen on maintaining the ceasefire understandings with Israel are also begging Iran for the resources to step up their attacks on Israel. Yet the Egyptians and UN envoys prefer not to see the double-dealing.
The Egyptian and UN mediators, in failing to call out the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad for their deception and conflicting messages, are permitting the two groups to deploy the ceasefire with Israel as a cover to prepare for the next war.
If and when the next war erupts in the Gaza Strip, the mediators will not be able to say that they were surprised. All these mediators have to do is turn half an ear to what the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their patrons in Tehran are saying to understand that the Gaza-based groups are dead-set on inflicting as much damage on Israel as possible. As per standard operating procedure, the biggest losers of all in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip will be the Palestinians.
Trump has a serious Syria problem - analysis - By Seth J. Frantzman -
US President Donald Trump wants to end what he has called "endless wars" - but he increasingly faces hurdles in Syria because US policy is running up against the reality that once you get into a conflict, it's hard to get out. The US-led coalition and its Syrian Democratic Forces partners on the ground defeated ISIS this year in March, but the jihadist threat still exists. Turkey has said it will launch an operation into eastern Syria in areas where the US and its partners are present, potentially leading to instability and more refugees.
The problem for the US in Syria, which Trump vowed to withdraw from in December, is that it got into Syria to defeat ISIS but now faces challenges from Russia, Iran, the Syrian regime and Turkey, the latter of which is supposed to be a US ally.
All of these countries oppose the US presence for different reasons. The Syrian regime opposes the US because it doesn't want America empowering local forces and appearing to harm its "sovereignty." Russia opposes the US because Moscow supports the Syrian regime, but also because it wants to see US influence weakened. Moscow has condemned the US role in Raqqa, arguing that the city has not been rebuilt since it was liberated in 2017, and has slammed the US role in Tanf, a desert base, accusing Washington of training militants and harming Syrian infrastructure, even stealing oil.
Iran's opposition to the US is historically clear: It wants to undermine America's role in Iraq, while not provoking a conflict with Washington. Yet the US has sanctioned the IRGC, which is active in Syria, and has condemned Iran's role in the war-torn country. Tehran understands that the US in Syria poses a challenge to their decision to carve out influence there, and a corridor of Iranian power that stretches from Al Bukamal on the Iraqi border to Damascus.
Lastly, Turkey is concerned about the US role because it believes the SDF is an umbrella group that contains the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which both countries view as a terrorist group.
From Ankara's perspective, there are questions about why Washington would support terrorists along Turkey's southern border. A Turkey-PKK ceasefire fell apart in 2015 and Turkey has fought against the PKK in cities in its eastern areas as well as through air strikes in northern Iraq and through the invasion of Afrin in Northwest Syria in January 2018.
Turkey wants to totally destroy the PKK and all its affiliates. It has launched air strikes against Yazidi members of the PKK in Sinjar and against a PKK camp near Makhmur. It seeks a total war across the region against anyone linked to the group. As such, eastern Syria is a target.
BUT TURKEY has a hurdle in the presence of US forces. For years, Ankara has threatened an operation. It increased rhetoric last fall - and its rhetoric is not just about launching a military operation, but about giving Syria to its "true owners," as the Turkish President said on December 12.
And who are the "true owners"? This is not spelled out, but Turkey has said it wants to help mostly Arab refugees return to Syria, who fled during the ISIS war. This already resulted in demographic change in Afrin, changing a historically Kurdish area into one that is more Arab.
Some 167,000 people, most of them Kurds, fled Afrin in 2018; Turkish media says 150,000 Syrians went into Afrin - but they are apparently not the same people who fled, leading to concerns about whether a Turkish operation in eastern Syria would be another repeat of Afrin. Ankara doesn't view the operation this way, claiming that it merely wants to create a "peace" corridor along its border and remove "terrorists." On August 4, Turkey told the US and Russia it would launch an operation.
This has sent the US scrambling. Since January, the it has been trying to work on a "safe zone" concept with Turkey that would allow some kind of international force to patrol the border inside Syria. But it was never clear what this plan entailed because US envoy James Jeffrey was always tight-lipped about what America really thought would occur.
This is a tightrope for Washington, because the US knows that if it appears to abandon the SDF and hand over part of eastern Syria to Turkey, then the SDF will seek Syrian regime support to prevent towns and cities it fought to liberate from ISIS, ending up run by Turkish soldiers or Syrian rebel forces. That would create a crisis in eastern Syria, as the regime rushes to secure areas - and as Turkey seeks to work with Russia to get approval for another Afrin-style operation, leaving US forces marooned and with no real function, a fait accompli for Washington, ending years of Syria policy in disgrace.
THE US also knows that its plans for "stabilization" in eastern Syria are not going well. The precarious situation in Syria is such that stabilizing the area after the ISIS war requires cash, but in 2018 most of the investment the US envisioned was not forthcoming.
Washington went hat in hand to Riyadh, and several hundred million dollars was supposed to arrive. But Trump's decision to leave left the fate of the cash up in the air, as the US tinkered to turn 2,000 troops into 200 in eastern Syria, while asking the UK, France and others to send troops.
So far, the UK and France seem willing only to send a token. Germany rejected US requests. Turkey knows it has influence over the UK and Germany, and that it can pressure these countries regarding any decision to commit to a framework Ankara rejects. Amid the Brexit debacle, the UK will need Turkey, maybe more than Turkey needs the UK.
Turkey is determined to go it alone if its last-minute demands of the US are not met. Turkish officials have told this message to its leading media: Anadolu, Daily Sabah and others. Jeffrey is looking into the abyss, as he looks at a year of work perhaps going down the drain. He was appointed in August 2018; now Turkey is the one making the demands: that the US must be flexible.
Washington has warned that there could be 15,000 ISIS fighters still at large in Syria. Hakki Ocal at Daily Sabah said this was a scare tactic - and anyway, the Turkish officers in the tanks on the border are ready to go into Syria regardless.
TRUMP HAS another message. He warned European countries over the weekend to take back their thousands of citizens who are being held in eastern Syria and who were previously ISIS supporters that were captured during the war. They could be released, he warned: Someone needs to take responsibility. If there is a conflict as Turkey moves into eastern Syria - and the regime and Russia along with everyone else scrambles - the increasing danger of ISIS sleeper cells and the thousands of its former members would indeed be a threat. Already they are described as a ticking time bomb; already there are dozens of attacks a month by ISIS sleeper cells in eastern Syria.
Turkey could be blustering. It has done this before to get what it wants. Telling the US that it will launch an operation and leaking stories about wanting the coordinates of US units, ostensibly so those units would be hit in an operation, may be more rhetoric than reality. Will the US Air Force really open up the skies of eastern Syria to a Turkish military operation of the sort that took place in Afrin?
The US knows that this would be humiliating: to see its partners run to Damascus to sign a deal, and see the Russians demanding entrance to eastern Syria - while the US is poised to withdraw, or try to hang on to some canton in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. This is not how the US wants its involvement in Syria to end. And for Trump, that is the major Syria problem.
Russia, Turkey, Iran: Adversaries of the West's NATO Alliance - by Con Coughlin -
Germany's point-blank refusal to support Washington's proposal for a maritime protection force in the Arabian Gulf to protect shipping from attacks by Iran is yet another example of Berlin's diplomatic and economic sabotage of the Western alliance.
Following the recent upsurge in Iranian aggression in the all-important Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf shipping artery through which flows one-fifth of the world's energy needs, Washington has sought international backing for Operation Sentinel, its naval operation to protect shipping in the region.
This search follows a series of Iranian attacks, including the shooting down of a US Navy drone operating in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as a number of attacks against merchant shipping, such as last month's seizure of the British-registered oil tanker Stena Impero.
But while Washington has responded to Iran's deliberate escalation of tensions in the region by deploying an aircraft carrier battle group, as well as troops, missiles, and fighter aircraft, its appeal to other nations to support its effort have received a muted response.
In particular, Washington would like to see Britain, France and Germany -- the three European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran -- provide tangible support for the mission.
From Washington's perspective, the fact that Europe is far more reliant on the Gulf for its energy supplies than is the US, whose energy imports from the region today are negligible, it seems only fair that Europe, as well as other beneficiaries such as Japan, pay their fair share towards ensuring no further Iranian disruption of Gulf shipping takes place.
To date, though, only Britain has deployed warships to the Gulf -- a frigate and a destroyer -- while France is considering its options.
Germany, however, the country that enjoys Europe's largest economy and is therefore more than capable of contributing to the American initiative, has bluntly rejected a State Department request to support the mission.
In an attempt to shame the Germans into joining the operation, Washington's request was made public through the US Embassy in Berlin earlier this week. "We've formally asked Germany to join France and the UK to help secure the Straits of Hormuz and combat Iranian aggression," an embassy spokeswoman announced. "Members of the German government have been clear that freedom of navigation should be protected... Our question is, protected by whom?"
The US ploy, though, has fallen on deaf ears in Berlin, where there is considerable opposition within German Chancellor Angela Merkel's ruling coalition to becoming involved for fear that it might exacerbate tensions with Iran. Germany, like the rest of Europe, is still wedded to the naive notion that the Iranian nuclear deal can be saved, irrespective of the Trump administration's decision last year to withdraw from the agreement.
Olaf Scholz, the German vice-chancellor, who is deputizing for Mrs Merkel while she is on vacation, responded by confirming that his country would not take part in a US-led naval taskforce; he warned about the danger of the world "sleepwalking into a much larger conflict".
Germany's outright rejection of Washington's request is likely to inflame tensions further between Washington and Berlin. U.S. President Donald J. Trump is already at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a range of issues, from Germany's obstinate refusal to meet its Nato funding commitments to its pursuit of closer energy ties with Russia through the construction of the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Mr Trump is highly critical of the project. He argues that it will make Europe, and especially Germany, too dependent on Moscow for its energy needs, which could undermine the resolve of the Nato alliance to take a robust stand against Moscow in any future confrontation.
Moreover, Germany's refusal to support the Western alliance in combating Iranian aggression in the Gulf comes at a time when Nato is facing another major dilemma over the future participation of Turkey as a member.
This follows the decision by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to press ahead with the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems in the face of strong opposition from Washington, which has responded by cancelling Ankara's continued involvement in the F-35 stealth fighter program.
So, at a time when the Western alliance is already struggling with how to respond to Turkey's deepening military ties with Russia, Germany's refusal to fulfil its obligations to protect shipping in the Gulf will be interpreted by adversaries of the West such as Moscow and Tehran as yet further evidence of what would doubtless please them very much: deepening divisions within the Western alliance.
THIS IS NOT SPAM...CHECK OUT MY BUSINESS.... THIS IS AMAZING!!!
I RELAX EVERY NIGHT WITH ESSENTIAL OILS. GO TO WWW.YOUNGLIVING.COM. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, CONTACT ME VIA THIS EMAIL, AND I WILL GIVE MORE DETAILS. I PROMISE YOU THAT YOU WILL ENJOY THIS AS MUCH AS I DO. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED.... CONTACT INFO:email: trsii2004@msn.com
TERRY SEEMAN - DISTRIBUTOR # 16084320
TERRY SEEMAN - DISTRIBUTOR # 16084320
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.