In a clear message to Tehran, an American B-52 flew over the Persian Gulf as soon as Joe Biden entered the White House. Biden promised to return the U.S. to the Iran nuclear deal. But indirect talks to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which began last April, have stalled for three months without a resolution in sight. Counting on the reliable support of Biden and bipartisan Iran hawks in Congress, the nuclear-armed Israeli apartheid regime intends to kill the deal entirely. Tehran, a decades-long signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, is neither seeking nor has...
Islam
News Roundup 6/20/2022
Colombia Left-wing ex-guerrilla Gustavo Petro won Colombia's presidential election. [Link] Assange Extradition Australia is lobbying the US behind the scenes to secure the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. [Link] Russia Ukraine’s Parliament passed two bills that will restrict Russian music and books. If President Volodymyr Zelensky signs the legislation, it will be a significant step forward in Kiev’s attempt to purge the Russian culture. [Link] The Washington Post reports the White House is planning for an extended conflict in Ukraine. Leaders in NATO, the UK and Germany have...
News Roundup 6/17/2022
US News The Senate Armed Services Committee has added $45 billion to President Joe Biden’s military spending plans in its annual defense policy bill. This week’s boost brings the bill’s topline budget figure to $847 billion. [Link] A major bill expanding health care and benefits for veterans exposed to toxic military burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan passed the US Senate. [Link] The House Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee approved a budget of $2.9 billion for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), $417 million higher than the White House’s original budget...
News Roundup 6/16/2022
US News Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen said the link between domestic terror attacks and easy access to powerful guns is “beyond dispute.” [Link] World News The world’s nine nuclear-armed countries spent $82.4 billion upgrading their atomic weaponry in 2021, eight percent more than the year before. [Link] According to the UN, 100 million people are forcibly displaced. [Link] Russia Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that some Biden administration officials are privately expressing concern that sanctions on Russia are worsening the global food crisis, exacerbating inflation, and...
News Roundup 6/14/2022
US News Reps Barbara Lee and Mark Pocan introduced a bill to cut $100 billion from the defense budget. [Link] The Pentagon's new AI and data chief says the Pentagon bureaucracy is so inefficient it took several days for him to receive his common access id. [Link] Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi s pleaded guilty to four out of five charges brought against him by US authorities, claiming he belonged to al-Qaeda and was responsible for war crimes in Afghanistan. [Link] Colombia A leader of the Colombian rebel FARC group has been killed in a military operation, according to President Ivan Duque. [Link]...
New Bill to Boost Missile Defense for Israel & Arab Partners, Citing Alleged Iran Threat
Lawmakers with the bipartisan Abraham Accords Caucus have introduced a bill in the House and Senate that will require the Pentagon to coordinate missile defense upgrades for Israel and several newfound Arab allies, pointing to potential “attacks from Iran.”
Ambassador Ford Lied About Giving TOW Missiles to Al-Qaeda in Syria
In September 2017, U.S. official Brett McGurk expressed concern that Syria’s northwest Idlib province had become “the largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 9/11.” Idlib had fallen to al-Qaeda, in the form of a jihadist coalition led by the group’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, in March 2015. Despite acknowledging that Idlib, the last bastion of the supposedly democratic and secular Syrian opposition, was dominated by al-Qaeda, McGurk failed to also note that U.S. planners themselves had played a key role in the terror group’s successful capture of the province. Specifically, he failed to...
Iranian Military Base Attacked With Drones ‘Launched From Inside Iran’ – NYT
An apparent drone attack targeting Iran’s Parchin military complex earlier this week was launched from within the country, the New York Times reported, suggesting the deadly incident followed a “pattern” of previous strikes carried out by Israel.
Pot, Meet Kettle: America’s Use of Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Weapons
In a recent editorial, I discussed a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on May 1, 2022, by Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). The proposed AUMF, if passed, would allow President Biden to deploy American forces to restore "the territorial integrity of Ukraine" in the event that Russia uses chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. Thankfully, as Antiwar.com news editor Dave DeCamp writes, Kinzinger's AUMF has failed to gain traction. This may seem like a bright spot in an otherwise apocalyptically bad news cycle, but not to...
Israel Tells US It Killed Iranian IRGC Colonel in Tehran
Israel has told the US that it killed a senior member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who was gunned down in Tehran on Sunday, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing an unnamed intelligence official.