There are obviously some serious linguistic issues and disagreements between the West and the rest of the world. Essential terms like “freedom”, “democracy”, “liberation”, even “terrorism”, are all mixed up and confused; they mean something absolutely different in New York, London, Berlin, and in the rest of the world.
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is dead, and so is its vicious rapist, murderous and genocidal founder and leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi. Now a very different kind of man – Iran’s Qods Force Commander Major-General Qasem Soleimani who played a central role in destroying ISIS – is dead too: But what is going to follow both of them is far, far worse.
The world is saying no to war with Iran and US out of the Middle East. Hundreds of protests were held in the United States and around the world on Saturday with a unified voice of “No War.” These protests are in solidarity with massive protests in Iraq calling for the US to get out where it is now an occupying force as the government has asked it to leave.
The crowing by Donald Trump that he “terminated” the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force, Major General Qaseem Soleimani, simply because Trump believed, mobster-style, that he had it coming, should remind the world that the United States government stands as the world’s record-holder in either directly carrying out or coordinating with other parties the assassination of political leaders, American and foreign.
Patrick COCKBURN
Today Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei gave his first Friday sermon in Tehran for eight years to an audience of thousands, as he tried to calm down the furious public reaction to the Revolutionary Guards mistakenly shooting down a Ukrainian plane carrying 176 passengers, then proceeding to lie about their responsibility for three days.
Patrick LAWRENCE
Of all the preposterous assertions made since the drone assassination of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3, the prize for bottomless ignorance must go to the bottomlessly ignorant Mike Pompeo.
Qasem Soleimani’s only recorded interview — his only extensive public statement — was issued online by Iran’s Government, translated into English, the very day it was broadcast, October 1, 2019, but U.S.-and-allied (propaganda) ’news’-media ignored it; and, so, here, for the first time, is that interview, along with my summary of what strike me as being the key statements in it.
The stepping back from the brink of war last week seems to have been achieved by the Trump administration and Iran both working together behind the scenes to coordinate a face-saving de-escalation. Both sides knew war would be disastrous and balked. At least for now.
Iran’s barrage of ballistic missiles on two U.S. bases in Iraq in the early hours of January 8 was more a symbolic show of defiance by the Islamic Republic than any serious attempt to inflict American casualties.
Everyone has heard by now that Soleimani was responsible for 600 American deaths… but where does this oddly specific number come from? Today on “Questions For Corbett,” James finds the answer at the bottom of a barrel of neocon lies.
Iran is not done. General Hajizadeh, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, said in a briefing yesterday that the strike “was the starting point of a great operation”. He also underlined that “the strikes were not meant to cause fatalities: We intended [rather] to deliver a blow to the enemy’s military machine”. And the Pentagon is saying, too, that Iran intentionally missed US troops at the bases.
