@KyleWOrton's Threads
So many questions about this.
And there we go:
CNN: Top CIA spy in Russia extracted after Trump's May 2017 meeting with Lavrov.
NYT: in actual fact, CIA asked him to leave in late 2016, and he relented in the spring of 2017 b/c of "more media inquiries". nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/…
CNN: Top CIA spy in Russia extracted after Trump's May 2017 meeting with Lavrov.
NYT: in actual fact, CIA asked him to leave in late 2016, and he relented in the spring of 2017 b/c of "more media inquiries". nytimes.com/2019/09/09/us/…
I'm afraid I've come to simply distrust CNN as the source for anything. It's not a compartmentalized problem to their Trump-Russia reporting. On the area I work on, the Middle East, the errors are regularly so overwhelming, and for no political purpose.
It's not even surprising that the @WashingtonPost provides space to terrorists any more.
Cemil Bayik, the #PKK leader, has an op-ed in today's paper calling for "peace" with #Turkey. It's a skilled piece of propaganda. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/… <thread below>
Cemil Bayik, the #PKK leader, has an op-ed in today's paper calling for "peace" with #Turkey. It's a skilled piece of propaganda. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/… <thread below>
And there you have it: puncturing the absolute taboo on political violence "because fascists" and "it's only a milkshake", and you open the door for ANTIFA to beat up a journalist. Even more disgraceful how many Leftists and journalists are in the comments excusing this.
Such bravery from this ANTIFA mob, the veritable heirs of those who stormed the beaches at Normandy, as serious commentators actually said of these Red fascists a couple of years ago.
An assortment of the acceptable reasons for political violence against journalists, starting with they "went there hoping for exactly that outcome" through his attackers are "like Second World War veterans", and concluding with having bad opinions is "worse" than being beaten. 
So ...
■ Obama never would do anything to hinder #Iran, let alone strike directly
■ Even on PJW's terms, Trump can hardly claim credit for sparing people from orders he gave, BUT
■ Trump never gave orders to attack; this is messaging in search of a summit and "better deal"
■ Obama never would do anything to hinder #Iran, let alone strike directly
■ Even on PJW's terms, Trump can hardly claim credit for sparing people from orders he gave, BUT
■ Trump never gave orders to attack; this is messaging in search of a summit and "better deal"
DoD prepared contingencies for strikes on #Iran, and Trump turned them down when asked for approval.
Some officials got the impression on the day Trump supported strikes, but in the middle of that day he also said Iran's attack could be an "accident". washingtonpost.com/politics/i-sto…
Some officials got the impression on the day Trump supported strikes, but in the middle of that day he also said Iran's attack could be an "accident". washingtonpost.com/politics/i-sto…
Note: nothing got past the planning stage.
Trump never gave an order to attack #Iran that was revoked.
The administration's spinning it that way in the aftermath via the controlled leak is part of the attempt to gain leverage without actually doing anything to get to new talks.
Trump never gave an order to attack #Iran that was revoked.
The administration's spinning it that way in the aftermath via the controlled leak is part of the attempt to gain leverage without actually doing anything to get to new talks.
Whatever the details of this attack in the Gulf of Oman, the essentials are plain enough, as with the rocket attack on the Saudi airport, Fujairah, and the rest of it. #Iran is demonstrating that it can do as it pleases without incurring meaningful reprisals from U.S./allies.
For all the talk of "maximum pressure", all the sanctions and the threats from U.S. officials, the reality has long been obvious: where it matters, on the ground in the northern Middle East, #Iran runs the show, and does so without the U.S. really even trying to inconvenience it.
Putting aside the sheer confusion of the Trump policy and messaging on #Iran (just look at this ) the focus on the sanctions was always bizarre. Cash is fungible and IRGC is (relatively) cheap to run. Once the U.S. opted out of hard power, that was that.
July 1979: Ibrahim Yazdi, foreign minister of the new Islamic Republic of #Iran, is interviewed by BBC. An extremely unctuous man (and one soon purged for being too "moderate"), he lies about the governance structure, Khomeini's responsibility for Hoveyda's murder, and much else.
Immediately after the revolution, several figures from the Liberation Movement of Iran—Ibrahim Yazdi (FM), Mehdi Bazargan (PM), Sadegh Ghotbzadeh (later FM)—were given leading positions. LMI had given Khomeini access to a larger audience; once they were unneeded they were purged.
The U.S. Embassy takeover in NOV 1979 was precisely to force Bazargan—who had done more than perhaps anyone to manipulate U.S. AMB Sullivan, convincing him to help usher the Shah out and Khomeini in—to resign. Khomeini felt Bazargan was reducing hostilities with America too much.
July 1978, NYT: SAVAK is both ubiquitous and ineffective; "many" #Iran protesters "express pro-American sentiments" and credit Jimmy Carter with forcing the #Shah's liberalization program [which began before Carter took office]; Bazargan quoted throughout cia.gov/library/readin…
September 1978: Gregory F. Rose suggests that the #Shah's government and secret police operated a more repressive system than the KGB in the Soviet Union. cia.gov/library/readin… This was the kind of nonsense being widely printed at the time.
September 1980: CIA report on the "disappearance" of Imam Musa al-Sadr; doesn't know much and even now has not redacted huge parts of it: cia.gov/library/readin…
Even when getting people to the point of admitting that the U.S. is supporting the #PKK and that's a problem, there has been a tendency to then speak as if it's a political problem for U.S.-#Turkey relations, rather than PKK being of itself a problem.
The #PKK was on the other side in the Cold War. It's doctrine is anti-Western at its core: its campaign against #Turkey is framed as one where the state is illegitimate because it is the imprint of Western imperialism. The PKK has the same view of #Israel.
The PKK fled Turkey after the coup in 1980, and was nurtured under the Asad regime, acting as a cut-out for the Soviet Union. After training at the Palestinian terrorist camps in Lebanon, the PKK launched its war against Turkey, a frontline NATO state, and was harboured in Syria.
#YPG/#PKK publicly invites the #Asad/#Iran system into the border areas, particularly Minbij, which was captured because of the efforts of the U.S., working in coordination with #Turkey, having promised that the city would be handed over to local rule after #IS was gone.
It doesn't seem that the #PKK has handed Minbij to the #Asad/#Iran system just yet, though a regime delegation visited this morning.
Worth noting here that the #SDF/#PKK opened Minbij up to Asad's secret police a long time ago, and if the Asad regime is present it means Iranian operatives are, too. thedailybeast.com/us-arms-kurds-…
9 Sept:
1543: Mary, Queen of Scots, 9-months-old, crowned
1923: CHP becomes a political party
1944: Communist coup in Bulgaria
1970: "Black September" events begin, end with PLO expelled from Jordan to Lebanon, where they cause another civil war
2001: Ahmad Shah Masud killed
1543: Mary, Queen of Scots, 9-months-old, crowned
1923: CHP becomes a political party
1944: Communist coup in Bulgaria
1970: "Black September" events begin, end with PLO expelled from Jordan to Lebanon, where they cause another civil war
2001: Ahmad Shah Masud killed
9 September 1976: Mao Zedong finally died.
Mao is the only rival to Stalin as the most murderous tyrant of the 20th century. Sadly the totalitarian regime he created in #China survives in somewhat modified form to the present.
Mao is the only rival to Stalin as the most murderous tyrant of the 20th century. Sadly the totalitarian regime he created in #China survives in somewhat modified form to the present.
9 September 1922: The Turkish forces enter Izmir, effectively defeating Greece.
The nationalist revolt against the Allied occupation was triggered by the Greek landing at Izmir in May 1919 (The Emergence of Modern Turkey, p. 241).
The nationalist revolt against the Allied occupation was triggered by the Greek landing at Izmir in May 1919 (The Emergence of Modern Turkey, p. 241).
A U.S. diplomat met three times with military officers in #Venezuela plotting a coup against Nicolas Maduro; he refused to give the officers even an indication of support, let alone the communications devices they needed to bring off their conspiracy. nyti.ms/2QfP2G2
Some saw #Venezuela's military as a means of stabilizing the situation, allowing practical things like aid deliveries. Others "saw considerable risk in building bridges with leaders of a military that...ha[ve] become a pillar of the cocaine trade and human rights abuses." #pt
There's nothing to complain about in the U.S. gathering intelligence by establishing communications with mutinous officers in #Venezuela. The question is whether Maduro is considered a threat: if he is, then do what's necessary to bring him down. If not, leave it for Venezuelans.
"Mazloum" is Ferhat Abdi Shahin (Shahin Cilo), a very senior member of the #PKK, a movement of post-Bolshevik narco-terrorists, recognised as such by US law.
Shahin joined PKK in 1990, has been the "SDF" coordinator with the @Coalition, who are fully aware of what he is.
Shahin joined PKK in 1990, has been the "SDF" coordinator with the @Coalition, who are fully aware of what he is.
After #Turkey launched airstrikes against the #PKK in Iraq and Syria on 25 April 2017, the U.S. attended one of the bases in Syria to signal solidarity with PKK. The PKK made sure that the U.S. military was photographed with Shahin, one of PKK's most-wanted men.
If you imagine a U.S. General meeting with Naim Qassem, the deputy of #Hizballah, to plan anti-terrorist operations that leave Hizballah controlling most of the Israeli border, then picture #Israel's reaction; you have some idea what this does to #Turkey.
More details on the schism between the Hazimis and lesser-extremists in #IS: Abu Anisa al-Dagestani, an Azeri commanded and Hazimi, blames the caliph's insufficiently stern position on takfir for the loss of land and men last year. chechensinsyria.com/?p=26129
According to Abu Anisa al-Dagestani, the caliph reversed the May 2017 expansion by the Delegated Committee of the takfir ruling after his wife had a dream in which Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, and Abu Muhammad al-Furqan came to his house and ignored him. #pt
The caliph reversed the May 2017 takfir ruling by a deft institutional manoeuvre: he invited its author, Ismail al-Ithawi (Abu Zayd al-Iraqi), to a meeting in August 2017 and threatened to kill him if he didn't reverse himself. #pt
If true, would seal the case for getting rid of Mattis.
Whatever the truth of Woodward's stuff, Mattis used his influence in April to work Trump down from a strike package that would have targeted the Asad regime itself and also killed some of the Russian and Iranian forces that abet its criminality. This was a disastrous mistake.
This is the reaction you want a Western leader to have:
After Assad gassed the kids again in April 2017, Trump said: "Let's fucking kill him! Let's go in. Let's kill the fucking lot of them."
Mattis blocked this response, and again this past April. washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-w…
After Assad gassed the kids again in April 2017, Trump said: "Let's fucking kill him! Let's go in. Let's kill the fucking lot of them."
Mattis blocked this response, and again this past April. washingtonpost.com/politics/bob-w…
After suppressing an attempt by the #PLO to overthrow the monarchy in 1970-1, #Jordan disavowed all claims on the West Bank in 1988, seemingly ending hopes for what had long seemed the most viable solution: a federal state spanning the River Jordan. axios.com/jared-kushner-…
Jordan wasn't just renouncing territorial ambitions: it was putting up a firewall against what the East Bank elite, not unreasonably, regard as a dire internal threat, should a settlement on such terms come about. Hard to see why Amman would reverse now.
Unsurprisingly, #Jordan rejects any proposal of a confederation with the #PLO on the West Bank. timesofisrael.com/jordan-rejects…
FBI was trying to "flip" oligarchs around Putin, notably Oleg Deripaska. It failed. Key question: was Christopher Steele, an intermediary, intentionally representing Deripaska's interests to the Americans? Securing visas, trying to clear OD's name, etc. nytimes.com/2018/09/01/us/…
The @NYTimes story is effectively the DoJ/FBI response to the revelations of how closely DoJ's Bruce Ohr was working with Christopher Steele as he compiled opposition research for Mrs. Clinton ("The Dossier"), which was then used at the FISC. This has happened frequently.
The possibility that this @NYTimes story on the FBI trying to turn Putinist oligarchs is misinformation to cover missteps with Steele in 2016 is almost more comforting. Because the plan as described seems designed to allow Russian spies to play games with the U.S. Intel system.
After the horrific 1968-74 period, Ernesto Geisel ('74-9), was regarded as one of the more benevolent rulers during the military dictatorship (1964-85) in #Brazil. Documents show he was aware of summary executions of subversives, as was CIA and Kissinger. theguardian.com/world/2018/may…
The CIA had detected the plans for the 1964 coup in #Brazil, and had contact with some conspirators. But the CIA did *not* instigate the coup, and did not provide money or direction for the plot. >>
>> What the U.S. did do in #Brazil in 1964—unknown to the coup plotters—was prepare, vaguely, to intervene if the coup triggered a civil war to ensure the Communists did not prevail. As it was, the coup encountered little resistance. nyti.ms/2PaQ7xB
We mock Owen Jones for silence now #Venezuela has ended as socialism always does, but having just read a Leftist argument that #China's internment of Muslims is invented by USG fronts like @HRW, the "corporate media", and "reactionary" oppositionists, OJ's looking quite good.
As a side note: I simply do not know where to start with the accusation that @HRW has an "excessively disproportionate focus on designated enemies of Washington". Whatever criticisms of HRW one might have, that one seems completely delusional.
Amazing what one can learn from Western Leftists who are back to defending #China. For example, there is a species of "imprisoned hard-right neoconservative Chinese dissident". Naturally, he is also a "hardcore libertarian" at the same time. And fully deserves to be in the GULAG.
21 August 1968: The Warsaw Pact [USSR, Bulgaria, GDR, Hungary, and Poland] invade Czechoslovakia, where a reformist leader had taken power in January and in April a reformist government took office, intent on "socialism with a human face". Moscow regarded this as a mortal threat.
Yuri Andropov, the KGB chief, advocated invading Czechoslovakia from early in the "crisis". The KGB made innovative use of Illegals, all of them posing as Westerners, to try to kidnap leading Czech reformists and to disseminate active measures to discredit the Prague Spring.
The KGB line was that "Rightists" and "imperialists" were preparing a coup in Czechoslovakia, hence the need for a preemptive invasion. Stories of American arms caches were disseminated. This despite solid information that the US had nothing to do with the Czech reformists.
The #YPG/#PKK announces that its operatives have murdered Akash Ahmad Ali, a member of the ruling council in Efrin. #Syria nedaa-sy.com/en/news/7735
Twenty years ago, on 7 August 1998, al-Qaeda blew up the U.S. Embassies on Kenya and Tanzania, massacring 200+ people, most of them in Kenya. This was al-Qaeda's entry into the world stage as a serious terrorist menace.
On this anniversary of al-Qaeda's assault on the U.S.'s East African Embassies, it is worth remembering that later investigation found al-Qaeda was enabled to do this by training #Iran provided to them.
7 August #OTD:
1933: The massacre of Assyrian Christians at Simele in Iraq
1964: Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing LBJ to deal with North Vietnam's aggression against the South
1990: First U.S. troops arrive in Saudi Arabia as part of Op DESERT SHIELD
1933: The massacre of Assyrian Christians at Simele in Iraq
1964: Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, allowing LBJ to deal with North Vietnam's aggression against the South
1990: First U.S. troops arrive in Saudi Arabia as part of Op DESERT SHIELD
#Saudi Arabia says #Canada's statement on the arrest of activists in the Kingdom is an unacceptable interference in its internal affairs, expels the Canadian ambassador and freezes all future trade. bbc.in/2vs6crl
"In her first public response to Saudi Arabia's actions, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said on Monday: 'Let me be very clear ... Canada will always stand up for human rights in Canada and around the world, and women's rights are human rights'." aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/s…
Direct investment was already down in #Saudi Arabia after some of the recent disturbances; this spat with #Canada is unlikely to help. on.wsj.com/2OgITYl
A column from me in The @NYPost: in Britain we saw the consequences of Labour's "pas d’ennemis à gauche" (no enemies on the Left) stance; if the Democrats don't start isolating their radicals there's no reason it can't go the same way. nyp.st/2LOdKi7
Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader "despite a massive smear campaign by Britain’s Zio-establishment", said David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. "It’s a really good ... when people are beginning to recognise Zionist power". thetimes.co.uk/article/former…
Not convinced this from Corbyn in The @Guardian will assuage the doubts. He doubles down on the changes Labour made to the IHRA definition of antisemitism; all about ensuring free speech (to criticise #Israel), you see. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
It's possible The @Independent just slightly tipped its hand at the outset in what it thinks about Seymour Hersh.
ind.pn/2mZMZZ7
ind.pn/2mZMZZ7
More carefully written than usual but also still somewhat misleading: in both My Lai and Abu Ghraib, Hersh wrote of atrocities that the US military was already in the process of punishing. He just added sensationalism and used the events for political warfare to assist the enemy.
The @Independent chose to pressure Seymour Hersh in a manner last seen with the NKVD ...
