1061 911 Mossad ran Arab hijacker cells - WIKILEAKS/ Madsen

911 Mossad ran Arab hijacker cells - WIKILEAKS/ Madsen

Newsletter published on September 21, 2019

(1) 911 Mossad ran Arab hijacker cells - WIKILEAKS/ Madsen
(2) Yemini drones are designed in Iran but made in Yemen. Trump won't
attack Iran, because he wants to be re-elected
(3) Trump's 'Maximum Pressure' has brought us to the Brink - Pat Buchanan
(4) Economist calls Trump's response 'Tepid'
(5) CIA-Mossad-Epstein-network's Orwellian solution to Mass Shootings is
similar to China's Social Credit

(1) 911 Mossad ran Arab hijacker cells - WIKILEAKS/ Madsen

From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2019
12:42:17 +0900 Subject:
analytical-and-intelligence-comments-mossad-ran-9-11-arab. WIKILEAKS/ Madsen

https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/13/1332210_-analytical-and-intelligence-comments-mossad-ran-9-11-arab.html

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global
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and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland
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[Analytical & Intelligence Comments] Mossad ran 9/11 Arab "hijacker"
terrorist operation

Released on 2013-02-13 00:00 GMT

Email-ID 1332210 Date 2011-05-04 16:26:59 From jetdrive@earthlink.net
To responses@stratfor.com [Analytical & Intelligence Comments] Mossad
ran 9/11 Arab "hijacker" terrorist operation


CROYDON KEMP sent a message using the contact form at
https://www.stratfor.com/contact.

Mossad ran 9/11 Arab "hijacker" terrorist operation

By Wayne Madsen

British intelligence reported in February 2002 that the Israeli Mossad
ran the Arab hijacker cells that were later blamed by the U.S.
government's 9/11 Commission for carrying out the aerial attacks on the
World Trade Center and Pentagon. WMR has received details of the British
intelligence report which was suppressed by the government of then-Prime
Minister Tony Blair.

A Mossad unit consisting of six Egyptian- and Yemeni-born Jews
infiltrated "Al Qaeda" cells in Hamburg (the Atta-Mamoun Darkanzali
cell), south Florida, and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in the
months before 9/11. The Mossad not only infiltrated cells but began to
run them and give them specific orders that would eventually culminate
in their being on board four regularly-scheduled flights originating in
Boston, Washington Dulles, and Newark, New Jersey on 9/11.

The Mossad infiltration team comprised six Israelis, comprising two
cells of three agents, who all received special training at a Mossad
base in the Negev Desert in their future control and handling of the "Al
Qaeda" cells. One Mossad cell traveled to Amsterdam where they submitted
to the operational control of the Mossad's Europe Station, which
operates from the El Al complex at Schiphol International Airport. The
three-man Mossad unit then traveled to Hamburg where it made contact
with Mohammed Atta, who believed they were sent by Osama Bin Laden. In
fact, they were sent by Ephraim Halevy, the chief of Mossad.

The second three-man Mossad team flew to New York and then to southern
Florida where they began to direct the "Al Qaeda" cells operating from
Hollywood, Miami, Vero Beach, Delray Beach, and West Palm Beach. Israeli
"art students," already under investigation by the Drug Enforcement
Administration for casing the offices and homes of federal law
enforcement officers, had been living among and conducting surveillance
of the activities, including flight school training, of the future Arab
"hijacker" cells, particularly in Hollywood and Vero Beach.

In August 2001, the first Mossad team flew with Atta and other Hamburg
"Al Qaeda" members to Boston. Logan International Airport's security was
contracted to Huntleigh USA, a firm owned by an Israeli airport security
firm closely connected to Mossad - International Consultants on Targeted
Security - ICTS. ICTS's owners were politically connected to the Likud
Party, particularly the Netanyahu faction and then-Jerusalem mayor and
future Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. It was Olmert who personally
interceded with New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to have released from
prison five Urban Moving Systems employees, identified by the CIA and
FBI agents as Mossad agents. The Israelis were the only suspects
arrested anywhere in the United States on 9/11 who were thought to have
been involved in the 9/11 attacks.

The two Mossad teams sent regular coded reports on the progress of the
9/11 operation to Tel Aviv via the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC.
WMR has learned from a Pentagon source that leading Americans tied to
the media effort to pin 9/11 on Arab hijackers, Osama Bin Laden, and the
Taliban were present in the Israeli embassy on September 10, 2001, to
coordinate their media blitz for the subsequent days and weeks following
the attacks. It is more than likely that FBI counter-intelligence agents
who conduct surveillance of the Israeli embassy have proof on the
presence of the Americans present at the embassy on September 10. Some
of the Americans are well-known to U.S. cable news television audiences.

In mid-August, the Mossad team running the Hamburg cell in Boston
reported to Tel Aviv that the final plans for 9/11 were set. The
Florida-based Mossad cell reported that the documented "presence" of the
Arab cell members at Florida flight schools had been established.

The two Mossad cells studiously avoided any mention of the World Trade
Center or targets in Washington, DC in their coded messages to Tel Aviv.
Halevy covered his tracks by reporting to the CIA of a "general threat"
by an attack by Arab terrorists on a nuclear plant somewhere on the East
Coast of the United States. CIA director George Tenet dismissed the
Halevy warning as "too non-specific." The FBI, under soon-to-be-departed
director Louis Freeh, received the "non-specific" warning about an
attack on a nuclear power plant and sent out the information in its
routine bulletins to field agents but no high alert was ordered.

The lack of a paper trail pointing to "Al Qaeda" as the masterminds on
9/11, which could then be linked to Al Qaeda's Mossad handlers, threw
off the FBI. On April 19, 2002, FBI director Robert Mueller, in a speech
to San Francisco's Commonwealth Club, stated: "In our investigation, we
have not uncovered a single piece of paper - either here in the United
States, or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in
Afghanistan and elsewhere - that mentioned any aspect of the September
11 plot."

The two Mossad "Al Qaeda" infiltration and control teams had also helped
set up safe houses for the quick exfiltration of Mossad agents from the
United States. Last March, WMR reported: "WMR has learned from two El Al
sources who worked for the Israeli airline at New York's John F. Kennedy
airport that on 9/11, hours after the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) grounded all civilian domestic and international incoming and
outgoing flights to and from the United States, a full El Al Boeing 747
took off from JFK bound for Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport.
The two El Al employee sources are not Israeli nationals but legal
immigrants from Ecuador who were working in the United States for the
airline. The flight departed JFK at 4:11 pm and its departure was,
according to the El Al sources, authorized by the direct intervention of
the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. military officials were on the
scene at JFK and were personally involved with the airport and air
traffic control authorities to clear the flight for take-off. According
to the 9/11 Commission report, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta
ordered all civilian flights to be grounded at 9:45 am on September 11."
WMR has learned from British intelligence sources that the six-man
Mossad team was listed on the El Al flight manifest as El Al employees.

WMR previously reported that the Mossad cell operating in the Jersey
City-Weehawken area of New Jersey through Urban Moving Systems was
suspected by some in the FBI and CIA of being involved in moving
explosives into the World Trade Center as well as staging "false flag"
demonstrations at least two locations in north Jersey: Liberty State
Park and an apartment complex in Jersey City as the first plane hit the
World Trade Center's North Tower. One team of Urban Moving Systems
Mossad agents was arrested later on September 11 and jailed for five
months at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Some of their
names turned up in a joint CIA-FBI database as known Mossad agents,
along with the owner of Urban Moving Systems, Dominik Suter, whose name
also appeared on a "Law Enforcement Sensitive" FBI 9/11 suspects list,
along with the names of key "hijackers," including Mohammed Atta and
Hani Hanjour, as well as the so-called "20th hijacker," Zacarias Moussaoui.

Suter was allowed to escape the United States after the FBI made initial
contact with him at the Urban Moving Systems warehouse in Weehawken, New
Jersey, following the 9/11 attacks. Suter was later permitted to return
to the United States where he was involved in the aircraft parts supply
business in southern Florida, according to an informed source who
contacted WMR. Suter later filed for bankruptcy in Florida for Urban
Moving Systems and other businesses he operated: Suburban Moving &
Storage Inc.; Max Movers, Inc.; Invsupport; Woodflooring Warehouse
Corp.; One Stop Cleaning LLC; and City Carpet Upholstery, Inc. At the
time of the bankruptcy filing in Florida, Suter listed his address as
1867 Fox Court, Wellington, FL 33414, with a phone number of 561 204-2359.

 From the list of creditors it can be determined that Suter had been
operating in the United States since 1993, the year of the first attack
on the World Trade Center. In 1993, Suter began racking up American
Express credit card charges totaling $21,913.97. Suter also maintained
credit card accounts with HSBC Bank and Orchard Bank c/o HSBC Card
Services of Salinas, California, among other banks. Suter also did
business with the Jewish Community Center of Greater Palm Beach in
Florida and Ryder Trucks in Miami. Miami and southern Florida were major
operating areas for cells of Israeli Mossad agents masquerading as "art
students," who were living and working near some of the identified
future Arab "hijackers" in the months preceding 9/11.

ABC's 20/20 correspondent John Miller ensured that the Israeli
connection to "Al Qaeda's" Arab hijackers was buried in an
"investigation" of the movers' activities on 9/11. Anchor Barbara
Walters helped Miller in putting a lid on the story about the movers and
Suter aired on June 21, 2002. Miller then went on to become the FBI
public affairs spokesman to ensure that Mueller and other FBI officials
kept to the "Al Qaeda" script as determined by the Bush administration
and the future 9/11 Commission. But former CIA chief of
counter-terrorism Vince Cannistraro let slip to ABC an important clue to
the operations of the Mossad movers in New Jersey when he stated that
the Mossad agents "set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an
intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area,
particularly in the New Jersey-New York area." The "intelligence
operation" turned out to have been the actual 9/11 attacks. And it was
no coincidence that it was ABC's John Miller who conducted a May 1998
rare interview of Osama Bin Laden at his camp in Afghanistan. Bin Laden
played his part well for future scenes in the fictional "made-for-TV"
drama known as 9/11.

WMR has also learned from Italian intelligence sources that Mossad's
running of "Al Qaeda" operatives did not end with running the
"hijacking" teams in the United States and Hamburg. Other Arab "Al
Qaeda" operatives, run by Mossad, were infiltrated into Syria but
arrested by Syrian intelligence. Syria was unsuccessful in turning them
to participate in intelligence operations in Lebanon. Detailed
information on Bin Laden's support team was offered to the Bush
administration, up to days prior to 9/11, by Gutbi al-Mahdi, the head of
the Sudanese Mukhabarat intelligence service. The intelligence was
rejected by the Bush White House. It was later reported that Sudanese
members of "Al Qaeda's" support network were double agents for Mossad
who had also established close contacts with Yemeni President Ali
Abdullah Saleh and operated in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Eritrea, as well
as Sudan. The Mossad connection to Al Qaeda in Sudan was likely known by
the Sudanese Mukhabarat, a reason for the rejection of its intelligence
on "Al Qaeda" by the thoroughly-Mossad penetrated Bush White House.
Yemen had also identified "Al Qaeda" members who were also Mossad
agents. A former chief of Mossad revealed to this editor in 2002 that
Yemeni-born Mossad "deep insertion" commandos spotted Bin Laden in the
Hadhramaut region of eastern Yemen after his escape from Tora Bora in
Afghanistan, following the U.S. invasion.

French intelligence determined that other Egyptian- and Yemeni-born
Jewish Mossad agents were infiltrated into Sharjah in the United Arab
Emirates as radical members of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the
"Muslim Brotherhood" agents actually were involved in providing covert
Israeli funding for "Al Qaeda" activities. On February 21, 2006, WMR
reported on the U.S. Treasury Secretary's firing by President Bush over
information discovered on the shady "Al Qaeda" accounts in the United
Arab Emirates: "Banking insiders in Dubai report that in March 2002,
U.S. Secretary of Treasury Paul O'Neill visited Dubai and asked for
documents on a $109,500 money transfer from Dubai to a joint account
held by hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi at Sun Trust Bank
in Florida. O'Neill also asked UAE authorities to close down accounts
used by Al Qaeda . ... The UAE complained about O'Neill's demands to the
Bush administration. O'Neill's pressure on the UAE and Saudis
contributed to Bush firing him as Treasury Secretary in December 2002 "
O'Neill may have also stumbled on the "Muslim Brotherhood" Mossad
operatives operating in the emirates who were directing funds to "Al Qaeda."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise to power of the
Taliban in Afghanistan, Sharjah's ruler, Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qasimi,
who survived a palace coup attempt in 1987, opened his potentate to
Russian businessmen like Viktor Bout, as well as to financiers of
radical Muslim groups, including the Taliban and "Al Qaeda."

Moreover, this Israeli support for "Al Qaeda" was fully known to Saudi
intelligence, which approved of it in order to avoid compromising
Riyadh. The joint Israeli-Saudi support for "Al Qaeda" was well-known to
the Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah-based aviation network of the
now-imprisoned Russian, Viktor Bout, jailed in New York on terrorism
charges. The presence of Bout in New York, a hotbed of Israeli
intelligence control of U.S. federal prosecutors, judges, as well as the
news media, is no accident: Bout knows enough about the Mossad
activities in Sharjah in support of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in
Afghanistan, where Bout also had aviation and logistics contracts, to
expose Mossad as the actual mastermind behind 9/11. Bout's aviation
empire also extended to Miami and Dallas, two areas that were nexuses
for the Mossad control operations for the "Al Qaeda" flight training
operations of the Arab cell members in the months prior to 9/11.

Bout's path also crossed with "Al Qaeda's" support network at the same
bank in Sharjah, HSBC. Mossad's phony Muslim Brotherhood members from
Egypt and Yemen controlled financing for "Al Qaeda" through the HSBC
accounts in Sharjah. Mossad's Dominik Suter also dealt with HSBC in the
United States. The FBI's chief counter-terrorism agent investigating Al
Qaeda, John O'Neill, became aware of the "unique" funding mechanisms for
Al Qaeda. It was no mistake that O'Neill was given the job as director
of security for the World Trade Center on the eve of the attack. O'Neill
perished in the collapse of the complex. Mossad uses a number of Jews
born in Arab countries to masquerade as Arabs. They often carry forged
or stolen passports from Arab countries or nations in Europe that have
large Arab immigrant populations, particularly Germany, France, Britain,
Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

For Mossad, the successful 9/11 terrorist "false flag" operation was a
success beyond expectations. The Bush administration, backed by the
Blair government, attacked and occupied Iraq, deposing Saddam Hussein,
and turned up pressure on Israel's other adversaries, including Iran,
Syria, Pakistan, Hamas, and Lebanese Hezbollah. The Israelis also saw
the U.S., Britain, and the UN begin to crack down on the Lebanese Shi'a
diamond business in Democratic Republic of Congo and West Africa, and
with it, the logistics support provided by Bout's aviation companies,
which resulted in a free hand for Tel Aviv to move in on Lebanese
diamond deals in central and west Africa.

Then-Israeli Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu commented on the 9/11
attacks on U.S. television shortly after they occurred. Netanyahu said:
"It is very good!" It now appears that Netanyahu, in his zeal, blew
Mossad's cover as the masterminds of 9/11.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist, author
and syndicated columnist. He has written for several renowned papers and
blogs.

Madsen is a regular contributor on Russia Today. He has been a frequent
political and national security commentator on Fox News and has also
appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and MS-NBC. Madsen
has taken on Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity on their television shows.
He has been invited to testifty as a witness before the US House of
Representatives, the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and an terrorism
investigation panel of the French government.

As a U.S. Naval Officer, he managed one of the first computer security
programs for the U.S. Navy. He subsequently worked for the National
Security Agency, the Naval Data Automation Command, Department of State,
RCA Corporation, and Computer Sciences Corporation.

Madsen is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ),
Association for Intelligence Officers (AFIO), and the National Press
Club. He is a regular contributor to Opinion Maker

(2) Yemini drones are designed in Iran but made in Yemen. Trump won't
attack Iran, because he wants to be re-elected
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/09/the-crisis-over-the-attack-on-saudi-oil-infrastructure-is-over-we-now-wait-for-the-next-one.html#more

September 19, 2019

The Crisis Over The Attack On Saudi Oil Infrastructure Is Over - We Now
Wait For the Next One

The Saudis and the U.S. accuse Iran of being behind the "act of war" as
Secretary of State Pompeo called it. The Saudis have bombed Yemen with
U.S. made bombs since 2015. One wonders how Pompeo is calling that.

The Yemeni forces aligned with the Houthi Ansarallah do not deny that
their drones and cruise missiles are copies of Iranian designs. But they
insist that they are built in Yemen and fired from there.

President Trump will not launch a military attack against Iran. Neither
will the Saudis or anyone else. Iran has deterred them by explaining
that any attack on Iran will be responded to by waging all out war
against the U.S. and its 'allies' around the Persian Gulf.

Trump sent Pompeo to Saudi Arabia to hold hands with the Saudi gangster
family who call themselves royals. Pompeo of course tried to sell them
more weapons. On his flight back he had an uncharacteristically dovish Q
& A with reporters. Pompeo said:

I was here in an act of diplomacy. While the foreign minister of Iran is
threatening all-out war and to fight to the last American, we’re here to
build out a coalition aimed at achieving peace and a peaceful resolution
to this. That’s my mission set, what President Trump certainly wants me
to work to achieve, and I hope that the Islamic Republic of Iran sees it
the same way. There’s no evidence of that from his statement, but I hope
that that’s the case. The crisis is over and we are back to waiting for
the next round. A few days or weeks from now we will see another round
of attacks on oil assets on the western side of the Persian Gulf. Iran,
with the help of its friends, can play this game again and again and it
will do so until the U.S. gives up and lifts the sanctions against that
country.

The Houthi will continue to attack the Saudis until they end their war
on Yemen and pay reparations.

As long as no U.S. forces get killed the U.S. will not hit back because
Trump wants to be reelected. An all out war around the Persian Gulf
would drive energy prices into the stratosphere and slump the global
economy. His voters would not like that.

In our earlier pieces on the Abqaiq attack we said that the attacked
crude oil stabilization plant in Abquaq had no air defense. Some
diligent researchers have since found that there was a previously
unknown Patriot air-defense unit in the area which was itself protected
by several short range air-defense cannons:

Michael Duitsman @DuitsyWasHere - 7:02 UTC · Sep 18, 2019 On paper, the
point air defenses at the Abqaiq oil processing facility are rather
formidable... by 1995 standards, at least.

But one Patriot system covers only 120° of the horizon. The attacking
drones came from a western directions while Saudi Arabia's enemies are
to its east and south. The older Patriot 2 version the Saudis have is
also not of much use against low flying drones and cruise missiles.

There is also the oddity that the Patriot unit's radar system was shut off.

Putin is a Virus @PutinIsAVirus - 4:53 UTC · Sep 19, 2019 No patriot
radars have been active in recent months (at least not consistently) in
the vicinity of the plant, not in the short range required to detect low
flying cruise missiles or drones. Closest installation is in Barhain.
(using Sentinel 1 CSAR sat for detection)

Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar can 'see' the radar of Patriot
and other air-defense system. None was detected around Abqaiq.

The explanation for that is likely rather trivial. Colonel Pat Lang was
stationed in Saudi Arabia as a military liaison officer. As he recently
remarked:

Never underestimate the feckless laziness of the Saudis. In my
experience they turn off all ATC and air defense systems that require
manning or watch keeping when they find them inconvenient as on the
weekend. IMO if Ansarallah did this they will do something similar soon
to prove they are responsible.

Abqaiq was attacked on the night of Friday to Saturday. That is the
weekend in Saudi Arabia.

Posted by b on September 19, 2019 at 18:12 UTC

(3) Trump's 'Maximum Pressure' has brought us to the Brink - Pat Buchanan

https://buchanan.org/blog/can-trump-still-avoid-war-with-iran-137515

Can Trump Still Avoid War with Iran?

September 19, 2019 by Patrick J. Buchanan

A more fundamental question arises: If the United States was not
attacked, why is it our duty to respond militarily to an attack on Saudi
Arabia?

President Donald Trump does not want war with Iran. America does not
want war with Iran. Even the Senate Republicans are advising against
military action in response to that attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities.

"All of us (should) get together and exchange ideas, respectfully, and
come to a consensus — and that should be bipartisan," says Senate
Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jim Risch of Idaho.

When Lindsey Graham said the White House had shown "weakness" and urged
retaliatory strikes for what Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls Iran’s
"act of war," the president backhanded his golfing buddy:

"It’s very easy to attack, but if you ask Lindsey … ask him how did
going into the Middle East … work out. And how did Iraq work out?"

Still, if neither America nor Iran wants war, what has brought us to the
brink?

Answer: The policy imposed by Trump, Pompeo and John Bolton after our
unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

Our course was fixed by the policy we chose to pursue.

Imposing on Iran the most severe sanctions ever by one modern nation on
another, short of war, the U.S., through "maximum pressure," sought to
break the Iranian regime and bend it to America’s will.

Submit to U.S. demands, we told Tehran, or watch your economy crumble
and collapse and your people rise up in revolt and overthrow your regime.

Among the 12 demands issued by Pompeo:

End all enrichment of uranium or processing of plutonium. Halt all
testing of ballistic missiles. Cut off Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in
Gaza. Disarm and demobilize Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq. Terminate
support for the Houthi rebels resisting Saudi intervention in Yemen.

The demands Pompeo made were those that victorious nations impose upon
the defeated or defenseless. Pompeo’s problem: Iran was neither.

Hezbollah is dominant in Lebanon. Along with Russia and Hezbollah, Iran
and its militias enabled Bashar Assad to emerge victorious in an
eight-year Syrian civil war. And the scores of thousands of
Iranian-trained and -allied Shiite militia fighters in the Popular
Mobilization Forces in Iraq outnumber the 5,200 U.S. troops there 20
times over.

Hence Tehran’s defiant answer to Pompeo’s 12 demands:

We will not capitulate, and if your sanctions prevent our oil from
reaching our traditional buyers, we will prevent the oil of your Sunni
allies from getting out of the Persian Gulf.

Hence, this summer, we saw tankers sabotaged and seized in the Gulf,
insurance rates for tanker traffic surge, Iran shoot-down a $130 million
U.S. Predator drone, and, a week ago, an attack on Saudi oil production
facilities that cut Riyadh’s exports in half.

This has been followed by an Iranian warning that a Saudi attack on Iran
means war, and a U.S. attack will be met with a counterattack. We don’t
want war, the Iranians are saying, but if the alternative is to choke to
death under U.S. sanctions, we will use our weapons to fight yours.

America might emerge victorious in such a war, but the cost could be
calamitous, imperiling that fifth of the world’s oil that traverses the
Strait of Hormuz, and causing a global recession.

Yet even if there is no U.S. or Saudi military response to Saturday’s
attack, what is to prevent Iran from ordering a second strike that shuts
down more Arab Gulf oil production?

Iran has shown the ability to do that, and, apparently, neither we nor
the Saudis have the defenses to prevent such an attack.

A more fundamental question arises: If the United States was not
attacked, why is it our duty to respond militarily to an attack on Saudi
Arabia?

Saudi Arabia is not a member of NATO. It is not a treaty ally. The
Middle East Security Alliance or "Arab NATO" chatted up a year ago to
contain Iran — of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states —
was stillborn. We are under no obligation to fight the Saudis’ war.

Nor is Saudi Arabia a natural American ally.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman runs an Islamic autocracy.

He inserted himself into first position in the line of succession to the
throne of his father, who’s in failing health. He locked up his brother
princes at the Riyadh Ritz Carlton to shake them down for billions of
dollars.

He summoned the prime minister of Lebanon to the kingdom, where the
crown prince forced him to resign in humiliation. He has ostracized
Qatar from Arab Gulf councils. He has been accused of complicity in the
murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

With his U.S.-built and bought air force, the Crown Prince has made a
hell on earth of Yemen to crush the Houthis rebels who hold the capital.

The question President Trump confronts today:

How does he get his country back off the limb he climbed out on while
listening to the Republican neocons and hawks he defeated in 2016, but
who have had an inordinate influence over his foreign policy?

(4) Economist calls Trump's response 'Tepid'

https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/09/19/a-strike-on-saudi-arabia-moves-a-shadowy-conflict-closer-to-open-war

Iran’s dangerous game

A strike on Saudi Arabia moves a shadowy conflict closer to open war
America’s response needs to balance deterring Iran with the risk of
escalation

Sep 19th 2019

The missiles streaked down and turned the night sky orange. In the early
hours of September 14th a barrage of fast-moving weapons hit Abqaiq, a
town in the eastern Saudi desert that is home to the world’s largest
oil-processing facility. They punched holes in the spheroids that
process crude oil and smashed five of Abqaiq’s 18 stabilisation towers,
lighting up the night. A separate volley set ablaze the Khurais
oilfield, 185km to the south west.

When the sun rose a few hours later, thick plumes of smoke were visible
from space. The images reminded some of the 1991 war with Iraq, when
Saddam Hussein’s retreating army set fire to oilfields in Kuwait. Oil
prices briefly surged 20% on news that more than 5.7m barrels a day of
oil production had been halted. This was the biggest disruption to the
world’s energy supply in decades (see article).

The attack appears to be the most dangerous escalation yet by the
Islamic republic in its simmering conflict with America and its allies.
After months of sabre-rattling and increasingly brazen acts of
aggression—from mine attacks on ships to the seizure of a
British-flagged oil tanker—Iran (or its proxies) has moved on to strike
directly at the jugular vein of the world’s economy. The barrage, by a
mix of cruise missiles and drones, also marks a worrying transition to
open war from the shadowy proxy conflict that Iran has waged with Saudi
Arabia and its allies.

Iran has made mischief in the region, and beyond, for years. The Quds
Force, a special-operations arm of the hardline Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps (irgc), provided explosives used in attacks on American
troops in Iraq a decade ago. Iran was also implicated in terrorist
activities in Europe and the Americas long before that.

But the regime’s most dangerous card—a nuclear programme that may have
left it months away from the ability to manufacture an atomic bomb—was
removed from the deck in 2015. An agreement struck between Iran and six
world powers saw it accept strict limits on uranium enrichment in
exchange for relief from some economic sanctions. The deal may have also
helped to dissuade Iran from aggressive acts that could have threatened
the foreign investment and other benefits promised by the deal. But that
calculus changed when President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew
America from the agreement in May 2018 and in effect banned the export
of its oil a year later. Iran’s exports have shrunk from a peak of 2.8m
barrels a day last year to less than 1m now. Mr Trump has since added to
the pain with new sanctions on entire industries, such as petrochemicals
and the gold trade, and on individuals including Mohammad Javad Zarif,
the foreign minister.

This pressure has prompted Iran to hit back. It first sabotaged oil
tankers in the Persian Gulf. Then it stepped up a notch to seizing them,
most recently grabbing a vessel on September 16th that it said was
smuggling fuel to the United Arab Emirates (uae). Iran has also begun to
flout some aspects of the nuclear deal itself, by enriching uranium to
proscribed quantities and levels of purity.

There was a logic to this escalation. Iran hoped that by threatening to
step away from the nuclear pact it would press the other signatories, in
particular France, Germany and Britain, into offering it support such as
credit lines to mitigate the impact of American sanctions. And by
menacing shipping in the Gulf it wanted to demonstrate that the regime
could impose costs on America and its allies. But what may have started
as a way of signalling Iran’s unhappiness has since escalated into more
dangerous actions such as the latest attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil
facilities.

In part this is because of Mr Trump’s tepid response to earlier
provocations. For all his hawkish rhetoric and sanctions, a campaign he
calls "maximum pressure", the president is averse to military conflict.
He ordered retaliatory air strikes after Iran shot down an American
drone flying over the Gulf in June, only to recall the bombers at the
last minute.

Much is still unknown about the latest attack. But it is reasonable to
conclude, as Saudi Arabia (and its ally America) soon did, that Iran had
a hand in it. The Islamic republic denies involvement, but
circumstantial evidence links it to the weapons used. The first claim of
responsibility came from the Houthis, who control northern parts of
Yemen and its capital, Sana’a. un investigators have previously said
that Iran had supplied the Houthis with advanced weapons, including
drones, missiles and equipment to make rocket fuel.

Many Houthi drones look almost identical to Iranian ones. Scores have
been flown into Saudi Arabia, aimed at airports, military bases and
other targets. In December 2017 the Houthis even launched missiles
towards a nuclear reactor under construction in Abu Dhabi. In January
the un noted that the Houthis had acquired a new drone with a range of
up to 1,500km. In May the group claimed to have struck two oil-pumping
stations and a pipeline deep in Saudi territory using such drones.

Houthi dunnit?

The weapons used in the latest attack seem to have been developed in
Iran. Fabian Hinz, an analyst with the James Martin Centre for
Nonproliferation Studies, wrote that wreckage found near Abqaiq looked
like a cruise missile known as the Quds-1, probably designed by Iran. At
a press conference on September 18th Saudi Arabia showed the wreckage of
drones and missiles that it claimed proved Iran’s involvement. America
says that these were launched from a base in southern Iran. Satellite
photos indicate a sophisticated and precise operation, with clean
strikes on Abqaiq’s facilities. It is hard to imagine the Houthis
conducting such an attack without Iran’s help.

If oil output, and by extension the world economy, was the first
casualty, then the second was surely Saudi credibility as a dependable
guardian of that supply. Last year Saudi Arabia spent between $68bn and
$83bn on defence (estimates vary), behind only America and China. Saudi
Arabia was one of the first foreign buyers of America’s Patriot
missile-defence system in 1991 and now operates six batteries of them.

Yet its ground forces have been humbled by four years of fighting rebels
waging guerrilla warfare in Yemen. And its air defences seem to be just
as inept at fending off conventional threats. To be fair, drones and
cruise missiles are especially hard to stop, particularly if they
overwhelm defences by arriving in large numbers. They are small and they
fly low, hiding from radar behind the curvature of the earth. And they
are manoeuvrable, so they can skirt known missile-defence sites. Some
reports suggest the Aramco barrage snuck in via Kuwait. Saudi air
defences are relatively thin in the eastern province, with most of its
batteries focused to the south on the threat from Yemen.

Even so, Saudi forces seem to have had only limited success in using
their Patriots against ballistic missiles, which are easier to spot. The
company that makes the Patriot claims that its batteries have batted
away more than 100 Houthi missiles over Saudi Arabia and the uae. But
Jeffrey Lewis, an expert at the Middlebury Institute of International
Studies at Monterey, says there is no evidence that they have
intercepted any missiles. If the Patriot and similar systems are leakier
than assumed, Saudi oil facilities may be worryingly vulnerable to Iran
should the conflict escalate.

America’s standing as the ultimate guarantor of security in the region
has also been damaged. Mr Trump first said that America was "locked and
loaded" to respond to the attack. Then he prevaricated, as he had done
in earlier incidents, kicking the ball back to Saudi Arabia, saying he
would wait "to hear from the kingdom" before acting. The following day
he stressed his desire to make a deal with Iran. On September 18th Mr
Trump announced that he would impose further sanctions. But their impact
will be limited, because the administration is running out of effective
targets.

An aide to the vice-president, Mike Pence, said that "locked and loaded"
was in fact a reference to American energy independence, a prize bit of
spin even for Mr Trump’s White House. The erratic swerves then continued
with Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, calling the attack an "act of
war" in a visit to the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia has tried to downplay the incident at home. King Salman
said that his country has the "ability to respond"—hardly a war cry.
Much of the public commentary on the attack has come from oil officials,
not military men. Two days after the attack the front page of Al-Riyadh,
a pro-government daily, led with a story about the crown prince
attending a camel race. Coverage of the Aramco incident came further
down. It emphasised international support for the kingdom and avoided
photos of burning oilfields.

This seems in keeping with Saudi tradition. For decades the kingdom was
conservative in its foreign policy and shunned the use of hard power.
Under the previous monarch, King Abdullah, it would have been
unthinkable for Saudi Arabia to conduct a military strike without
America’s full support.

Times have changed. The crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman, has ploughed
ahead with a ruinous war in Yemen despite deep misgivings in Washington
and other Western capitals. He has also worked to cultivate a new Saudi
identity, one rooted in muscular nationalism instead of Islam. Officials
in the Gulf have warned for months that the kingdom would eventually
have to retaliate against Iran for the seemingly endless string of drone
and missile attacks on its facilities.

Yet Saudi Arabia remains hesitant to pick a fight with a foe that can
fight back. The experience of its air force in Yemen is not encouraging.
Air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition have killed thousands of
civilians, despite Britain and America providing precision munitions
from their own arsenals and targeting assistance in a bid to reduce
"collateral damage". Iran, which operates the Russian s-300 air defence
system, would be an even harder target for Saudi warplanes. (Vladimir
Putin, in a sublime bit of political trolling, suggested on September
16th that Saudi Arabia might want to buy the same system, while Mr
Rouhani chuckled on a stage next to him.) The kingdom does have its own
arsenal of Western-built cruise missiles, but their short range means
they could reach only parts of Iran.

Iran takes aim

If further evidence of Iran’s role comes to light, Mr Trump may face
more pressure to act. "The strike on Abqaiq is arguably the most serious
attack on energy infrastructure in the Gulf since Saddam Hussein’s
forces invaded Kuwait in 1990," says Michael Singh of the Washington
Institute for Near East Peace Policy, a think-tank.

Mr Trump has a range of options. His proposed strike in June was aimed
at the radar and missile batteries involved with shooting down the
American drone. This time he could target facilities from which the
attack on Saudi Arabia was launched—although drones and cruise missiles
tend to be mobile and easy to launch from austere sites.

Another option would be to target facilities associated with the irgc.
Attacking their bases and personnel outside Iran—whether in Iraq, Syria
or Yemen—might be considered less escalatory than striking Iranian soil.
A larger show of force is also possible. In 1988 America responded to
Iranian attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf with Operation Praying
Mantis, a major air and naval assault on Iranian ships and platforms.

Quds in

Iran would not sit by. Its conventional means are limited; its $13bn
defence budget is a fifth of Saudi Arabia’s, and one-fiftieth that of
America’s. But it could target further missile volleys at ships, bases
and other critical infrastructure throughout the Gulf. The Quds Force
could also mobilise regional allies, from the Houthis in Yemen to
Hizbullah in Lebanon, to attack Western and Arab interests, which is one
reason that the Pentagon is discouraging Mr Trump from ordering a
military strike. More subtly, Iran’s accomplished cyber-forces could
disrupt energy, financial and political networks within the region and
beyond. In 2012 Iranian hackers were blamed for crippling 30,000 of
Saudi Aramco’s computers in one of the costliest cyber-attacks ever.

A wild and uncontrolled backlash is unlikely. In choosing their parry,
Iran’s leaders would need to balance between facing down America by
raising the stakes, and avoiding an all-out war that would threaten the
regime’s survival. Their hope is that Mr Trump would lose the stomach
for a fight long before matters reached such a stage.

This was always the inexorable endpoint of Mr Trump’s policy of "maximum
pressure". He and his aides thought they could pummel Iran into a new
deal that constrained not only its nuclear programme but also its
foreign policy. Instead they convinced Iran’s hardliners that the only
way of dealing with America was through muscular confrontation. Neither
side will find it easy to back away. ?

This article appeared in the Middle East and Africa section of the print
edition under the headline "Iran’s dangerous game"

(5) CIA-Mossad-Epstein-network's Orwellian solution to Mass Shootings is
similar to China's Social Credit

From: chris lancenet <chrislancenet@gmail.com> Subject:
webb-how-CIA-Mossad-Epstein-network-are-exploiting-mass-shootings-create-orwellian

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-09-07/webb-how-CIA-Mossad-Epstein-network-are-exploiting-mass-shootings-create-orwellian

Webb: How The CIA, Mossad, & "The Epstein Network" Are Exploiting Mass
Shootings To Create An Orwellian Nightmare

Sun, 09/08/2019 - 00:00

Authored by Whitney Webb via MintPressNews.com