Conscientious Objector Group: Phone 'Ringing Off Hook' As Huge Mobilization Underway

ZeroHedge

An 80-year-old nonprofit that advises conscientious objectors says its phone is "ringing off the hook" as American service members who object to the US-and-Israel-initiated war on Iran are seeking guidance on how to avoid being a part of it. Ominously, the group's executive director says the breadth of force mobilization is much like the run-up to the ground invasion of Iraq.

"Phone has been ringing off the hook," wrote Center on Conscience & War executive director Mike Prysner on X. "A LOT more units have just been activated for deployment than the public knows about." Founded in 1940, the Center on Conscience and War provides guidance to military service members pursuing a conscientious objector (CO) status or a discharge. The group also opposes military conscription.

In a post on the group's account, the Center said it received a call from someone who is on deployment orders and who:

"reports widespread opposition to Iran War within their unit...In particular, they conveyed disgust at the US massacre of the girls' school as well as the attack on the Iranian frigate in international waters."

The US military is reportedly responsible for killing some 150 schoolgirls in Minab, Iran during the opening of the war. In another incident, a US Navy submarine torpedoed an Iranian ship that was departing a largely ceremonial naval event in India that involved 18 countries. Compounding the controversy over sinking a lightly-armed vessel 2,000 miles from the war theater, the Americans apparently left surviving sailors to drown in a violation of the Geneva Convention -- that is, a war crime. At least 87 died.

Under US military policy, CO status is defined as "a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief." That would seemingly exclude service members who stand ready to defend America, but who view the war on Iran as an amoral enterprise being carried out solely to advance Israel's agenda in the region.

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The US-Israeli murder of Iranian schoolchildren cannot be whitewashed

Eva Bartlett | RT

Graves being prepared for the victims, mostly children, of what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-US strike on February 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, March 2, 2026. ©  Iranian Foreign Media Department via AP

In Iran, under ongoing US-Israeli attacks, a mass funeral took place today for 168 Iranian schoolgirls aged 7-12, killed by an Israeli airstrike on February 28.

The strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' primary school in Minab, southern Iran, in broad daylight, when the children were at school. Fourteen teachers were also killed in the bombing. The bombing occurred as part of US-Israeli attacks sadistically dubbed 'Operation Epic Fury', attacks which have to date targeted schools, hospitals, residential areas and other civilian infrastructure.

It was a scene all too familiar to Palestinians: grief-stricken parents collapsing sobbing at the site of their daughters' murders, clutching bloodstained backpacks, pulling out schoolbooks and personal items of their slain daughters. Children's desks covered in debris from the bombing. A child's shoe in the rubble. Death where life had flourished.

None of this is being conveyed by Western legacy media - only ghoulish gloating over the US-Israeli bombardment of Iran and the murder of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and his young granddaughter and children.

On March 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted a photo of the graves being dug on X, noting:

"These are graves being dug for more than 160 innocent young girls who were killed in the US-Israeli bombing of a primary school. Their bodies were torn to shreds. This is how "rescue" promised by Mr. Trump looks in reality. From Gaza to Minab, innocents murdered in cold blood."

At the time of this writing, 69 of the murdered girls remain unidentified.

International reaction: Silence

If the bombed school had been in Israel or Ukraine, news of it would have been plastered on front pages of Western media for days, with widespread demands for retaliation, or at least for justice and accountability. Back in 2016, Western media alleged Syria or Russian planes had injured Aleppo boy Omran Daqneesh. His photo went viral, for weeks, even years. A CNN news anchor fake-sobbed for the boy. In 2017, in his home, his father told me their home was not hit in an airstrike, but rather terrorists shelled it and used the boy in a cynical, and effective, photo op.

Footage shared on Telegram and on X clearly show horrific scenes of some of the young girls torn apart in the US-Israeli bombing of their school. But just like the untold thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israel, as well as the half a million Iraqi children killed by US sanctions, these Iranian children's lives don't merit Western media outrage. Instead, they produce cynical reports that not only lack any semblance of empathy, but suggest that Iran is either lying about or is to blame for the murders.

Take the BBC's report, which describes the massacre as a "reported" strike on a school, which "Iran has blamed the US and Israel" for. Casting doubt is standard for legacy media whitewashing the US and Israel's crimes. The US is "looking into reports." Israel is "not aware." Just one of those mysterious unknown strikes.

The BBC then overtly blamed the Iranian government as untrustworthy, writing:

"Deep mistrust of the Iranian regime, however, makes official reports difficult for many to accept, and some Iranians directly blamed the regime for the attack.

The BBC did similarly dishonest and deceptive journalism in 2014 in Damascus after terrorists in eastern Ghouta had shelled an elementary school, killing one child and injuring over 60. The BBC later reported: "the government is also accused of launching [mortar strikes] into neighborhoods under its control." The BBC could have easily learned about the trajectory of mortars and from where the strike in question could only have come: the terrorist "moderates" east of Damascus.

The New York Times also got the memo, likewise omitting Israel from the headline and implying Iran is lying. But when it comes to blaming Iran for its retaliation, the NYT has no problem stating whose missile strike it was. And there is no "Israel says."

CNN ran the headline "A girls' elementary school was hit in Iran. Here's what we know." Its video report not only doesn't mention the US or Israel, but insinuates Iranian blame: In an Israel-like tactic (recall Israel's claiming Gaza's Shifa hospital was a "Hamas base", and staging weapons as "proof"), CNN claims the children's school could be connected to an Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) base. But The Cradle noted that the school had operated independently as a civilian institution for over a decade, with separate entrances, playgrounds, and classrooms.

CNN's report did, at least, debunk online claims that the school was hit by a failed missile launch by Iran, noting the photo shared online as "proof" of the claim was actually taken 800 miles from Minab. But, hello? If it wasn't a failed Iranian missile there is clearly one remaining explanation: the schoolgirls were killed by US-Israeli bombing.

Most Western media cite The US military's Central Command (Centcom) as saying it was "looking into reports of the incident," and the Israeli army as saying it was "not aware of any IDF operations in the area." Ah yes, the guilty shall investigate themselves. Right.

Even if you set aside the actual culprit of the school bombing, legacy media reports are devoid of any concern for the slaughtered children: no details, no empathy, no mention that they were murdered in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The tone would be radically different were the children Israeli, Ukrainian or American. We would see names, ages, stories about them. They would be humanized - if only they were not Iranian (or Palestinian, or Lebanese, or Syrian).

Since the February 28 Minab school massacre, US-Israeli strikes have attacked still more civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring more Iranian civilians.

One man recounted to RT how after the bombing of central Tehran's Enghelab Square he'd seen a decapitated person in front of his café. Walking around showing the destruction, RT's Tehran bureau chief Hami Hamedi pointed out residential buildings, cars, shops, damaged and destroyed in recent bombings where a police station was among those targeted.

This was the same tactic which Israel used on December 27, 2008, when it unleashed over 100 bombs nearly simultaneously on Gaza, targeting police stations, police academies, universities and more, destroying and damaging shops and residential buildings around them.

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US strategy of 'regime change' is over - Gabbard

RT

Venezuela earlier this year accused the US president of plotting a coup, while Trump himself has floated the idea of overthrowing Iran's leadership.

US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard has acknowledged Washington's history of regime change but said it ended under President Donald Trump - despite his recent remarks on Iran and accusations about Venezuela.

The US has long faced criticism for pursuing policies aimed at overthrowing governments under the banner of promoting democracy or protecting national interests - from Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011 to backing "color revolutions" such as Ukraine's 2014 Maidan coup. Speaking at the 21st Manama Dialogue in Bahrain on Saturday, Gabbard claimed that, unlike its predecessors, the Trump administration prioritizes diplomacy and mutual deals over coups.

"The old Washington way of thinking is something we hope is in the rearview mirror and something that has held us back for too long: for decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation building. It is a 'one-size-fits-all approach' of toppling regimes, imposing US governance models, and intervening in 'poorly understood' conflicts, only to walk away with more enemies than allies."

Gabbard said the strategy drained trillions of US taxpayer dollars, cost countless lives, and fueled new security threats, but noted that Trump was elected "to put an end to this."

"And from day one, he has showed a very different way to conduct foreign policy, one that is pragmatic, that is deal-driven. This is what President Trump's America First policy looks like in action - building peace through diplomacy."

Since his inauguration in early 2025, Trump has repeatedly portrayed himself as a global peacemaker, boasting of brokering international deals and saying he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Critics, however, argue his pressure campaigns on Venezuela and Iran mirror Washington's regime-change playbook.

Caracas last month accused the US of plotting a coup against President Nicolas Maduro under the guise of its ongoing anti-drug campaign off the country's coast. Trump himself hinted at "regime change" in Iran after US strikes in June, posting on truth Social: "Why wouldn't there be a Regime change???" Tehran, which has long accused Washington of trying to destabilize it through sanctions and covert actions, denounced the strikes as proof of renewed efforts to undermine its government.

Why Tony Blair governing Gaza would result in more war crimes

Irfan Chowdrey | Declassified UK

Soldiers who served under his command in Iraq got away with sexually assaulting prisoners, in scenes similar to Israel’s torture of Palestinians. 

Under US president Donald Trump’s new plan for Gaza, former British prime minister Tony Blair has been touted as having a senior role in governing Gaza, acting as a deputy to Trump himself. 

Aside from the obvious neo-colonial implications of this – Western Viceroys ruling over occupied Arabs, as opposed to those occupied Arabs being granted self-determination – Blair’s track record of human rights violations makes him deeply unsuitable for the job.

Blair made the decision in 2003 to join with the US in invading and occupying Iraq. Human Rights Watch has noted that “UK nationals committed abuses in Iraq after 2003 on a significant scale”.

Many of these abuses stemmed from policies that were implemented by Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) under Blair’s leadership, wherein abusive interrogation techniques were authorised from above.

Under Blair’s MoD, ‘harshing’ was authorised – this constitutes a technique of psychological abuse wherein an interrogator screams into a detainee’s face, making implicit threats of violence and engaging in personal insults and vitriol. 

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US Officials Confirm Israel Behind Unprecedented Airstrikes On Iraq

Zero Hedge 

In an unprecedented escalation which could reshape alliances in the Middle East, American officials have confirmed that Israel was behind an airstrike on an Iraqi ammunition depot operated by a pro-Iran militia last month, according to The Associated Press:

Two American officials said Israel carried out an attack on an Iranian weapons depot in July that killed two Iranian military commanders. The U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

The admission comes after two more mystery explosions rocked paramilitary bases in and around Baghdad within the last two weeks, resulting in multiple paramilitary members killed, at least one civilian death, and dozens of injured, and which prompted Iraq's Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi to close the country's airspace to all “unauthorized flights”. 

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Will the US ever be held accountable for its war crimes?

Jean Perier
New Eastern Outlook

For more than a decade, the United States has been steadily increasing the scale of its illegal military operations across the Middle East, resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

Eighteen years ago, the US invaded Afghanistan under the pretext of ousting the Taliban who allegedly granted sanctuary to Al-Qaeda. According to a study released by Brown University, more than 140,000 Afghan militants and civilians have died in the fight.

Since December 2001, the United States has been conducting various operations in Somali, and even today the Pentagon carries out both air strikes and ground operations, accompanied by a constant toll of civilian lives.

Back in 2003, Washington launched Operation Iraq Freedom to strip Saddam Hussein of WMDs he didn't even have and to convert Iraq into a «democracy», plunging this country into a state of perpetual chaos guaranteeing that it will remain a Western bastion in the Arab and Islamic World for years to come.

Eight years ago, the US succeeded in destabilizing Libya, when US warplanes attacked the troops of Libya's most successful ruler to date - Muammar Gaddafi. Back then, Washington took every step to ensure his government would be ousted and and its key leaders murdered. The Libyan conflict has since produced tens of thousands of dead. In 2016, Barack Obama said that Libya was probably the "worst mistake" of his presidency.

The seven years of war in Syria resulted in a death toll of half a million Syrian nationals. Here, American troops are stationed illegally to fight ISIS and "indigenous ground forces." The strange wording that Washington uses in its official rhetoric is no coincidence, since more than on one occasion US armed forces have opened fire on both Syrian government troops and civilians, with no official rationale ever being given to explain this brutality.

In Yemen, the United States has been backing Saudi Arabia's efforts to put an end to the Houthi rebellion for three years. Washington carries on supplying Saudi authorities with high-precision weapons, combat aircraft and intelligence. This war has already triggered the largest humanitarian catastrophe of the 21st century, with 20 million people finding themselves on the brink of starvation. 

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Tulsi Gabbard - Why she is running for president

Comment: Much as I like Gabbard she won't be allowed to get anywhere near the presidency.

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Tulsi Gabbard

Stand with Tulsi: https://www.tulsi2020.com | If you share only one thing about Tulsi with your friends and family, make it this video. Over six minutes, this raw and emotional exchange encapsulates the reason she is running for president. 

From Tulsi Gabbard: 

As a soldier, I know the cost of war—on my brothers and sisters in uniform, their families, and the people in those countries where we intervene, whose lives are completely devastated. Over the last two decades, through the Iraq War, the invasion of Libya and the Syrian War, we’ve seen the catastrophic impacts of American intervention. But it’s not only those who are impacted by combat who pay the price—every single American pays the price for these wars.

My mission as president will be to put an end to wasteful and reckless regime change wars, the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, and introduce a Peace Dividend to reinvest the trillions that would be spent on those wars to instead meet the needs of the American people.

Our needs are great—redirecting those trillions of dollars means investing in universal healthcare and education, climate change solutions, clean air and water for our communities, rebuilding our nation's crumbling infrastructure, investing in a green energy economy, and protecting Social Security for seniors.

The people in charge of our foreign policy—the ones ratcheting up tensions with Russia, China and North Korea, the ones who are making the case for regime change war in Syria, Venezuela and Iran, either don’t know or don’t care about the true cost of war and the very real threat of nuclear war in our world today. To effectively address the threats we face in a global economy and as a global community - including nuclear war, climate change and global pandemics—we need to get out of the Cold War mentality that pits one nation against another nation. This is fossilized 20th century thinking that doesn't fit the world we live in today.

We're not in a win-lose scenario anymore—we have to be committed both militarily and economically to a win-win approach based on cooperation for mutual security and prosperity. Regardless of party or label—Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Progressives—we must come together to bring about a sea change in our approach to foreign policy.

This is why I’m running for president: to institute a Peace Dividend by ending regime change war, ending the new Cold War and nuclear arms race, taking the trillions of dollars wasted in these wars and giving them back to the American people. With this Peace Dividend, we can provide Medicare for All, we can protect Social Security, we can ensure our students have access to an affordable education, we can rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure and we can protect our air and water, to build a brighter future for all Americans. 

 #TulsiGabbard #TULSI2020 #PeaceDividend #IraqWar #AfghanistanWar #Venezuela

FBI Sued for Failure to Report Known 9/11 Evidence to Congress

Collective Evolution

 

In Brief

• The Facts:The Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and 9/11 victim family members have announced a joint federal lawsuit against U.S. Department of Justice for not acknowledging evidence about what happened on 9/11.
• Reflect On:Why has the US government continuously ignored credible evidence? Why do they constantly deem it a 'conspiracy theory' and use character assassination and ridicule tactics instead of just countering the evidence?

Nearly 20 years after 9/11, the tragic event has served as a catalyst for the mass awakening of millions of people to facts about our government, or ‘the powers that be,’ that they previously were unaware of. Furthermore, every year after that event has brought even more awareness and new information to the forefront, serving as a mass awakening tool. It has helped so many people understand that not everything presented to us by our government is accurate. When it comes to 9/11, many believe it was an event created by the powers that be in order to justify the invasion of Iraq by the western military alliance, otherwise known as ‘false flag’ terrorism. This narrative has been supported by many academics trying to bring awareness to the truth of the event as well as multiple political figures from around the world, including those within the United States.

The evidence that something fishy happened on 9/11 is very strong, and this is why the majority of American citizens alone don’t believe the official explanation provided by their government, which is evident if you look at the latest polls. Over the past few years, this subject has been under investigation by thousands of architects, engineers and physicists. Researchers have even been publishing papers in peer reviewed academic journals emphasizing that what we really saw, apart from planes hitting the towers, was a simultaneous controlled demolition. For example, a paper titled “15 Years Later, On The Physics Of High-Rise Building Collapses” in the European Scientific Journal concluded:

The evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that all three buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition. Given the far-reaching implications, it is morally imperative that this hypothesis be the subject of a truly scientific and impartial investigation by responsible authorities.

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Foreign backed terrorism in Iran: Part one -US/Israeli backed Salafists in Iran

Aram Mirzaei
The Saker blog 

While terrorism is a phenomenon most of us have come in touch with during our lifetime, much of the coverage is shadowed by terrorism in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Iraq, where US backed terrorist groups have wreaked havoc in devastating the wars that have plagued these countries.

Nonetheless, terrorism is widespread across the region, even in Iran. Due to Iran’s relatively strong internal stability, terrorist groups have been unable to catch major headlines in the Islamic Republic as terrorist groups often conduct hit and run attacks or the occasional kidnappings of young drafted border guards and soldiers near the Pakistan/Afghanistan border areas as well as across Iran’s western borders towards Iraq. Some groups are motivated by separatist goals, while others are driven by religious extremism. In this first part I will cover terrorism across Iran’s eastern borders, one that is driven by the Salafist ideology.

Iran has been familiar with terrorism for many decades through the Saddam Hussein-backed “People’s Mujahideen”, a strange group of “Marxist-Islamists” who waged war on their own country in an attempt to grab power, shortly after the Islamic Revolution. During Saddam’s 8 year war on Iran they were backed and armed by Iraqi security forces, often resorting to terrorist attacks, killing many innocent people in the process. While this group was effectively defeated, it has nonetheless survived as it was sheltered by the Saddam regime and recently have found refuge in Albania. I will come back to this group later.

Since the 9/11 attacks when Al-Qaeda became a household name, Takfiri groups have become increasingly widespread in the Middle East and central Asia. Many Takfiri groups have found their haven in neighbouring Pakistan which they use as a home base to launch cross border attacks on Afghanistan and Iran. Pakistan’s government and security apparatus are known to support Takfiri groups across the region, at the behest of WaTakshington, a fact that former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf admitted to.

Pakistan is home to multiple Saudi funded so called Madrasas, terrorist recruitment centres focused on brainwashing young men into joining militant groups with similar ideologies such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. For decades, since the days of the Soviet-Afghan war, Islamabad has used terrorism as a tool for its foreign policy towards its neighbours. But it is important to understand that Islamabad and Pakistan’s security services are working for Washington’s interests, because had they had their own interests at heart, they wouldn’t allow the Waziristan province to turn into a terrorist controlled region in the country, endangering the lives of Pakistanis across the country. These Takfiri groups have committed heinous crimes against Pakistanis as well, such as the notorious Peshawar school shootings of 2014 where 132 schoolchildren were murdered.

Since 2003, Iran has been plagued by Takfiri terrorism that has penetrated through Iran’s south-eastern borders into the Sistan and Baluchistan province. One of the more active groups in the region was the Jundallah terrorist group, made up of the predominantly Sunni Muslim Baluchis (a people living in southeastern Iran and southwestern Pakistan). Jundallah claimed to be fighting for Baluchi rights in Iran while also espousing the formation of a Sunni Baluchi state. From their bases in Pakistan, over the course of 8 years, Jundallah conducted multiple terrorist attacks in Iran, such as the 2007 Zahedan bombings where 18 members of the IRGC were killed. 

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The ocean of lies on Venezuela recalls the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq

Blog Factory

There are clear and disturbing parallels between the events that led to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the current frenzy promoting regime change in Venezuela. From the state actors to the massive disinformation campaign, Washington and its “coalition of the willing” appear to be following the same old imperialist formula.

The Canary spoke to activist journalists Mike Prysner and Fiona Edwards about the parallels between the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and current events in Venezuela. Prysner was 19 years old when he was deployed to Iraq in March 2003. He is now an anti-war activist, producer and writer for The Empire Files, and co-host of the Eyes Left podcast. Edwards, meanwhile, is a national officer of Stop the War coalition (a central organising force against the Iraq invasion) and a writer on Latin America.

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Weapons Inspector Refutes U.S. Syria Chemical Claims

Comment: By now, all but the most ill-informed and apathetic (and mainstream media journalists) must actually believe Assad had anything to do with the latest chemical attack.

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Dennis J. Bernstein
NWO Report

Scott Ritter is arguably the most experienced American weapons inspector and in this interview with Dennis J. Bernstein he levels a frank assessment of U.S. government assertions about chemical weapons use.

In the 1980’s, Scott Ritter was a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps, specializing in intelligence.  In 1987, Ritter was assigned to the On-Site Inspection Agency, which was put together to go into the Soviet Union and oversee the implementation of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.  This was the first time that on-site inspection had been used as part of a disarmament verification process.

Ritter was one of the groundbreakers in developing on-site inspection techniques and methodologies. With this unique experience behind him, Ritter was asked in 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, to join the United Nations Special Commission, which was tasked by the Security Council to oversee the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.  From 1991 to 1998, Ritter served as a chief weapons inspector and led a number of teams into Iraq.

According to Ritter, in the following Flashpoints Radio interview with Dennis Bernstein conducted on April 23rd, US, British and French claims that the Syrian Government used chemical weapons against civilians last month appear to be totally bogus.

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Index On Disgrace

Craig Murray

The second half of my life has been a continual process of disillusionment with the institutions I used to respect. I suppose it started with the FCO, where I went from being Britain’s youngest ambassador to being sacked for opposing the use of intelligence from torture, at the same time having an insider view of the knowing lies about Iraqi WMD being used as a pretext for invasion and resource grab.

I still had some residual respect for the BBC, which respect disappeared during the Scottish independence referendum where BBC propaganda and disregard for the truth were truly shameless. My love of the universities was severely tested during my period as Rector of Dundee University, when I saw how far the corporate model had turned them from academic communities developing people and pursuing knowledge, to relentless churners out of unconsidered graduates and financially profitable research, with nearly all sense of community gone. My respect for charities vanished when I discovered Save the Children was paying its chief executive £370,000 and had become a haven for New Labour politicos on huge salaries, which was why it was so involved in pushing a pro-war narrative in Syria. When Justin Forsyth and Brendan Cox – both massively salaried employees who came into Save the Children from the revolving door of Gordon Brown’s office – were outed over sexual predation, that seemed a natural result of “charities” being headed by rich party hacks rather than by simple people trying to do good. As for respect for parliament, well the massive troughing expenses scandal and all those protected paedophiles...

It has become difficult to hang on to respect for any institution, and that is unsettling.

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War & Who is the Aggressor?

Martin Armstrong

What is very clear is that the philosophy adopted by the US military post-World War II seriously threatens world peace and it diminishes the dignity of the United States. In the Cycle of War report, I provided the evidence that every single war we have engaged in has been a lie not just the invasion of Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction when it was all about oil and making money for Dick Cheney’s friends. Sadly, George Bush Jr will go down in history for being the aggressor when it would be a miracle if he even knew where Iraq was, to begin with. Then there was the fake news that Vietnam attacked the USA. Even Lyndon Johnson lied to the nation on TV and privately said the Americans were probably shooting at whales that night not a Vietnamese attack.

Even the sinking of the Lusitania was a deliberate act by the USA to justify getting involved in the war because Americans were isolationists. The Germans even took out an advertisement warning that the Lusitania would be sunk because it was using passengers as cover to move weapons to Britain. Our military sacrificed its own citizens to justify war.

Then there was Operation Northwoods where the documents have come out showing that the CIA wanted to kill Americans and blame it on Cuba to start a war. Every single war has been started with fake news all so some in the Military get to play with their toys no matter how many boys die for their games.

The critical problem we face is truly monumental. It is a vast problem that has consumed foreign policy discussions for decades. The underlying Syria issue brings to the surface the core problem. Besides the fact that it was the US invasion of Iraq that has unleashed the war in Syria since Sadam prevented the religious fanatics to ever gain a foothold. There was no civil war in Syria before removing Sadam. Mercenaries have come from all over to fight in Syria. It is not even purely a civil war.

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False-flag for war: New Syrian chemical weapons attack being reported by all the usual suspects

Caitlin Johnstone
Medium

The western propaganda machine is endlessly impressive. People are so pervasively brainwashed by mass media psyops that they now find it easier to believe that Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin are deliberately killing civilians with poisonous gas for no reason whatsoever than to believe that the same empire which deceived us into Iraq is deceiving us into Iraq's next-door neighbor Syria.

There are early reports of another mass casualty chemical weapons attack in Syria, as usual in a region crawling with known terrorist forces, and as usual just as those terrorists are suffering critical defeats. As usual, the attack is placed in a location replete with children and cameras. As usual, all the expected high-profile pro-regime change propagandists are all over it, from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke.

Details are sketchy and unconfirmed, but the early narrative being promulgated is clear.

"If 30+ died in the CW attack in Douma, then it would be the most fatalities in a chemical attack in Syria since Khan Sheikhoun just over a year ago," said the Atlantic Council's Eliot Higgins of the attack. "This could be another major moment in the conflict, something depressingly dependent on whether or not Fox and Friends covers it." 

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Russia ‘Novichok’ Hysteria Proves Politicians and Media Haven’t Learned The Lessons of Iraq

"...how could UK government leaders have known ‘who did it’ in advance of any criminal forensic investigation or substantive testing by Porton Down or an independent forensic investigation by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)?"

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 "...a substantial amount of evidence points to only two countries who are the most active in producing and testing biological and chemical weapons WMD – the United States and Great Britain. Their programs also include massive ‘live testing’ on both humans and animals with most of this work undertaken at the Porton Down research facility located only minutes away from the scene of this alleged ‘chemical attack’ in Salisbury, England."

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Patrick Henningsen
21st Century Wire

If there’s one thing to be gleaned from the current atmosphere of anti Russian hysteria in the West, it’s that the US-led sustained propaganda campaign is starting to pay dividends. It’s not only the hopeless political classes and media miscreants who believe that Russia is hacking, meddling and poisoning our progressive democratic utopia – with so many pinning their political careers to this by now that’s it’s too late for them to turn back. As it was with Iraq in 2003, these dubious public figures require a degree of public support for their policies, and unfortunately many people do believe in the grand Russian conspiracy, having been sufficiently brow-beaten into submission by around-the-clock fear mongering and official fake news disseminated by government and the mainstream media. 

What makes this latest carnival of warmongering more frightening is that it proves that the political and media classes never actually learned or internalized the basic lessons of Iraq, namely that the cessation of diplomacy and the declarations of sanctions (a prelude to war) against another sovereign state should not be based on half-baked intelligence and mainstream fake news. But that’s exactly what is happening with this latest Russian ‘Novichok’ plot.

Admittedly, the stakes are much higher this time around. The worst case scenario is unthinkable, whereby the bad graces of men like John Bolton and other military zealots, there may just be a thin enough mandate to short-sell another military conflagration or proxy war – this time against another nuclear power and UN Security Council member.

Enter stage right, where US President Donald Trump announced this week that the US is moving closer to war footing with Russia. It’s not the first time Trump has made such a hasty move in the absence any forensic evidence of a crime. Nowadays, hearsay, conjecture and social media postings are enough to declare war. Remember last April with the alleged “Sarin Attack” in Khan Sheikhoun, when the embattled President squeezed off 59 Tomahawk Cruise missiles against Syria – a decision, which as far as anyone can tell, was based solely on a few YouTube videos uploaded by the illustrious White Helmets. Back then Trump learned how an act of war against an existential enemy could take the heat off at home and translate into a bounce in the polls. Even La Résistance at CNN were giddy with excitement and threw their support behind Trump, with some pundits describing his decision to act as “Presidential.”

As with past high-profile western-led WMD allegations against governments in Syria and Iraq (the US and UK are patently unconcerned with multiple allegations of ‘rebel’ terrorists in Syria caught using chemical weapons), an identical progression of events appears to be unfolding following the alleged ‘Novichok’ chemical weapon poisoning of retired British-Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, Wiltshire on March 4th.

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“The Sloppy Dossier”: Plagiarism and “Fake Intelligence” Used to Justify the War on Iraq: Copied and Pasted from the Internet into an “Official” British Intel Report

Glen Rangwala and Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

Fifteen years ago, the illegal invasion of Iraq. March  21, 2003.

While the Chilcot Inquiry report was released in 2016, it is worth noting that most of the dodgy dossier evidence pertaining to Tony Blair and George W, Bush was available before the onset of the Iraq war in March 2003.  

Fake intelligence as well as plagiarized quotations had been slipped into an official intelligence report pertaining to Iraq’s WMD presented to the UN Security Council by Secretary of State Colin Powell on February 5, 2003.  

Damning evidence refuting Colin Powell’s official intelligence report was revealed by Cambridge Lecturer Dr. Glen Rangwala (image right) on  Britain’s Channel 4 TV on February 6, 2003, on the day following Secretary of State Colin Powell’s historic Iraq WMD presentation to the UN Security Council: 

“I would call my colleagues’ attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom distributed . . . which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception activities.” (Colin Powell, UN Security Council, February 5, 2003)

Powell was referring to “Iraq Its Infrastructure Of Concealment, Deception And Intimidation”, published on January 30, 2003.

According to Rangwala, the  British intelligence document was fake. It had not been prepared by British intelligence. It was copied and pasted from the internet by members of Tony Blair’s staff:   

The Downing Street authors state they drew “upon a number of sources, including intelligence material” (p.1, first sentence). In fact, they copied material from at least three different authors and gave no credit to them. Indeed, they plagiarized, directly cutting and pasting or near quoting.
A close textual analysis suggests that the UK authors had little access to first-hand intelligence sources and instead based their work on academic papers, which they selectively distorted. Some of the papers used were considerably out of date. This leads the reader to wonder about the reliability and veracity of the Downing Street document.

It was a fake document prepared on the instructions of prime minister Blair with a view to building a “credible” justification to wage war on Iraq. 

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Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh, John Pilger, and Noam Chomsky are considered ‘Far-Right conspiracists’ in the sycophantic new school of journalism

Comment: More spineless left-liberal nonsense from Monbiot who believes that good journalism is right-wing conspiracy theorizing...

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Leak of Nations

Manadel al-Jamadi hung from the rusty rungs of a barred window, his hands behind his back in a style known as a Palestinian hanging. American troops beat him and demanded the unconscious prisoner reveal the whereabouts of a non-existent weapons cache. His face was hidden under a green bag and hanging down over his droopy shoulders, displacing from their sockets from gravity’s force, pushing his limp body down to the cold ground of his cell.

Half an hour passed, and the exuberant Americans soldiers started to think that the sorry Iraqi man was cheating them by playing dead ‘like a possum’, and released him from his stress position. They then realised that the prisoner had no pulse.

Such harrowing scenes from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq would forever remain unknown to the American public who pay the soldiers in question if it weren’t for the relentless muck-raking of the world’s most accomplished investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh. Hersh won the Orwell award for his exposé, to add to his collection alongside his Pulitzer he gained in 1970 for his work on the My Lai massacre in Vietnam.

However, for the ‘fake news’- conscious crop of journalists in 2017, Hersh is a ‘far-right conspiracist’ and ‘unhinged’ for his willingness to confront power rather than parrot its claims ad nauseam.

In his Guardian column, George Monbiot argues that Hersh, alongside journalist and documentary maker John Pilger, and – even more strangely – the left-wing academic Noam Chomsky are all guilty of spreading ‘far-right conspiracy theories’ surrounding the sarin attack on the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun.

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Body of tragic Iraq weapons inspector Dr David Kelly mysteriously EXHUMED 14 years after 'sexed up' dossier controversy

The Mirror UK

The body of Iraq weapons inspector Dr David Kelly has been mysteriously exhumed, it emerged last night.

Dr Kelly was found dead in 2003, days after being grilled by a Parliamentary committee about his contact with journalists.

He was buried in a churchyard near his home in Oxfordshire.

But a few months ago, his remains were exhumed at the request of his family, Thames Valley Police said.

According to the Hutton inquiry, Dr Kelly took his own life by overdosing on painkillers and cutting his wrist with a knife.

However, doubts about the suicide verdict have persisted ever since.

Dr Kelly was caught up in the scandal surrounding the Blair government's notorious 'sexed up' dossier which claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction capable of being launched within 45 minutes.

In 2003, the 59-year-old scientist admitted to BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan he had been concerned by those claims in an off-the-record conversation.

Gilligan's reporting of the story led to Dr Kelly being identified - with some claiming Blair's government leaked his name intentionally.

Dr Kelly came under extreme pressure during questioning before a Select Committee.

In July 2003, he was reported missing after telling his wife he was going for a walk.

His body was found in woodland near his home in Oxfordshire the next morning.

Many still believe his death should be investigated with a full inquest.

According to the Sun on Sunday, Dr Kelly's remains may have been moved because of 'unwelcome attention' from campaigners at the gravesite.


See also:  

Doctors claim cover-up over death of weapons expert Dr. David Kelly

Cover-up claims as David Kelly post mortem set to stay under wraps for 70 years

Cleaning up after their crimes: More evidence that Dr David Kelly was murdered by The Secret Team

The Mass Killing of Civilians, Now in Syria and Iraq, Is Part of a Long Depressing Pattern of American War Making

Alternet
Frank Joyce

A recent New York Times op-ed by Micah Zenko documents a new increase in civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria. The headline asks the question, Why Is the U.S. Killing So Many Civilians in Syria and Iraq?

The answer, which should be obvious, is this: because that’s what the United States military does and always has, that’s why.

There are peace loving nations in the world. The United States is not one of them. It never has been.

Untaught History

The belief that our “freedom” requires the application of violence to others, especially others who are not white, is deeply embedded in the national psyche. The genocidal idea that the best Indian is a dead Indian precedes the Revolution of 1776. The violence required by the slave trade and the enforcement of slavery itself was also established early on.

The founding fairy tale of the United States credits George Washington and others with nobility and heroism in the violent conflict with the British Army. Often ignored is the messy detail that many Indians and black people fought on the side of the British.

The point is that the true military DNA of the nation is rooted in the nonstop business of slaughtering Native Americans, rebellious slaves, Mexicans, Hawaiians, Filipinos, innumerable Latin Americans, Asians, and sometimes even white people deemed to be in the way of our “God ordained” global mission. One requirement throughout has been worship of those who serve in the military.

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The U.S. Army Says It Doesn’t Know What It Did with $1 Billion in Weapons

Anti-Media


Iraq — According to a government audit from 2016, through shoddy record-keeping, the United States Army has lost track of $1 billion worth of military material sent to Iraq. The equipment, intended to aid Iraqi forces, is part of the Iraq Train and Equip Fund, a program born out of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“This audit provides a worrying insight into the U.S. Army’s flawed — and potentially dangerous — system for controlling millions of dollars’ worth of arms transfers to a hugely volatile region,” said Patrick Wilcken of Amnesty International in a statement.

The audit, conducted by the Department of Defense, found that hundreds of mortar rounds and Humvee armored vehicles and tens of thousands of assault rifles were unaccounted for.  This latest audit echoes findings from a 2015 audit.

Highlighting the fact that the Middle East is — as the Washington Post puts it, “awash in U.S. weapons and equipment” — Wilcken says the audit brings to mind a troubling pattern that seems to plague the United States military:

“It makes for especially sobering reading given the long history of leakage of US arms to multiple armed groups committing atrocities in Iraq, including the armed group calling itself the Islamic State.”

Congress initially allocated $1.6 billion for the Iraq Train and Equip Fund. The 2017 NDAA is set to give the program an additional $920 million. For Wilcken, this latest audit should be a reminder to governments of the consequences of their current approach to the Middle East:

“This should be an urgent wake-up call for the US, and all countries supplying arms to Iraq, to urgently shore up checks and controls. Sending millions of dollars’ worth of arms into a black hole and hoping for the best is not a viable counter-terrorism strategy; it is just reckless.”

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