Israel vs Palestine/Lebanon/Iran/Yemen/Syria: a New Middle East War

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
... Alastair Crooke ...

The best analysis you may have heard yet.

Someone is not speaking the truth.

Half of the reports I read or hear tell of Iranians celebrating in the streets that the brutal theocratic autocracy that has ruled over them has been decapitated, and the other half, such as Alastair Crooke above, are reporting that the Iranians are deeply enraged and seeking revenge for the decapitation of their supreme religious leader.

There is certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence in this that the well practiced hands of British intelligence, and their associates in the Commonwealth, Israel, the European Union, the CIA and District of Columbia, and elsewhere, are up to their usual, provoking deep divisions within the people of a region.

But whether that's actually part of what's happening here, or it just looks like that, is not something that any deep state actors who might know would determine that I or anyone else here would also have "a need to know". Quite the contrary. They would almost certainly determine that we need to be lied to, and any internal discussion would only be over what lie(s) to tell us.

[Bruce G Charlton]

Off topic somewhat - but A BIG THANK YOU to the diversity of Avalon commenters who have done such a great job of making available a range of alternative perspectives on this appalling war over the past few days.

(Perhaps especially that indefatigable "workaholic Trojan beaver" who goes by the name of Ravenlocke )

This is something I can't find elsewhere, and is Much Appreciated by me!

[thirtythree]

Posted by ThePythonicCow (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
... Alastair Crooke ...

The best analysis you may have heard yet.

Someone is not speaking the truth.

Half of the reports I read or hear tell of Iranians celebrating in the streets that the brutal theocratic autocracy that has ruled over them has been decapitated, and the other half, such as Alastair Crooke above, are reporting that the Iranians are deeply enraged and seeking revenge for the decapitation of their supreme religious leader.

There is certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence in this that the well practiced hands of British intelligence, and their associates in the Commonwealth, Israel, the European Union, the CIA and District of Columbia, and elsewhere, are up to their usual, provoking deep divisions within the people of a region.

But whether that's actually part of what's happening here, or it just looks like that, is not something that any deep state actors who might know would determine that I or anyone else here would also have "a need to know". Quite the contrary. They would almost certainly determine that we need to be lied to, and any internal discussion would only be over what lie(s) to tell us.

Lies in order to manufacture consent and justify an invasion of a sovereign state.

Note that this time they are not interested in bringing 'democracy' as the appointed puppet will be voted out.

[sdv]

It is not unthinkable that such a large population as Iran would include people who would celebrate the targetting and killing of primary school children. There are sociopaths and psychopaths in every population. But there is also a massive PR campaign being broadcast by Western media. This is not a video game. It is real. Little children being targetted and killed, including at least one granchild of the supreme leader in the massive bomb dropped on his compound.

So, these 'protests' are theatre, a show being broadcast for Americans. Soon the population will be like the Israelis and will be saying that all Iranian children are destined to grow up to be evil terrorists, so it is justified yo kill them, or they are being used as 'human shields' and thus it is not your fault ... it is the evil regime that is at fault.

If you have an ounce of humanity left in you, you will be out on the streets and be screaming 'do not kill children in my name for any reason or under any circumstances'.

[Arcturian108]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
As we all know, there's such an (over-!)abundance of video commentaries about the current situation, (a) it's nearly impossible to keep up, and/or (b) know who best to prioritize and follow. I'd suggest that Alastair Crooke, who knows the Middle East extremely well personally and is an outstanding analyst, may be at or near the top of the list.

Alastair Crooke : Trump's Dangerous War of Choice

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cQi8exiUVVw

Edit to add:

The best analysis you may have heard yet.

I listened to the first 7 minutes of this video, and couldn't stomach it much more after hearing Alistair Cooke keep referring to Khamenei as a "humble man". To me Khamenei was monster who made sure that female Iranians sentenced to death were raped before being hung, because of the religious rule against killing virgins.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Arcturian108 (here)
To me Khamenei was monster who made sure that female Iranians sentenced to death were raped before being hung, because of the religious rule against killing virgins.

Dear Ruth, what's the source of information you have for this?

[Arcturian108]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Arcturian108 (here)
To me Khamenei was monster who made sure that female Iranians sentenced to death were raped before being hung, because of the religious rule against killing virgins.

Dear Ruth, what's the source of information you have for this?

Bill,
I found this tweet yesterday on my Twitter account. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the quote: https://twitter.com/paddymacc1/statu...68906942349530

Grok AI further supports this quote: "Human rights reports, including from IranWire and Justice for Iran, document such practices in Iranian prisons since the 1980s, often justified by clerics invoking Islamic interpretations to prevent martyrdom, though the exact quote's direct attribution to Khamenei remains debated."

[Arcturian108]

In terms of long-time followers of Middle East politics, I like to keep up with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times even though I hate the politics of that paper, and refuse to spend any money to read their columns. The following is a workaround way to see his latest thoughts through another website that occasionally mirrors their columnists articles: Thomas Friedman "How to Think About Trump's War with Iran"

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Arcturian108 (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Arcturian108 (here)
To me Khamenei was monster who made sure that female Iranians sentenced to death were raped before being hung, because of the religious rule against killing virgins.

Dear Ruth, what's the source of information you have for this?

Bill,
I found this tweet yesterday on my Twitter account. I can't vouch for the authenticity of the quote: https://twitter.com/paddymacc1/statu...68906942349530

Grok AI further supports this quote: "Human rights reports, including from IranWire and Justice for Iran, document such practices in Iranian prisons since the 1980s, often justified by clerics invoking Islamic interpretations to prevent martyrdom, though the exact quote's direct attribution to Khamenei remains debated."

Thanks! (That's a photo of Ayatollah Khomeini (1900—1989), not his successor Khamenei, who was just assassinated. The reference comes from here, citing a book that was published in the year 2000.)

[Mike Gorman]

I must report feeling conflicted about this Iran conflict, specifically the killing of Iran's supreme religious leader: here is a man of Islamic faith, someone who has overseen terrorism & the imposition of Islam on the Persian population: I don't support Netanyahu, or the Israel ongoing slaughter of civilians of Gaza. I am sure I can't be the only one feeling ambivalence & moral confusion, I suppose this is the nature of War & violence, it blows everything up into chaos: we may very well be witnessing a time of enormous, unpredictable changes/events, this has set something in motion that may not resolve for a long time. Sorry about the break in topic, it just occurs to me that we are all probably feeling shaken up?

[mountain_jim]

Also conflicted - we have a neighbor from Iran, with family in Iran, who currently supports this removal of the Iran Islamic leadership, and strongly wishes it had been done months ago, before (she said) 35,000 protestors were put to death by the regime, according to her family contacts within Iran.

As services were down, she had not been able to contact family in Iran yet.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Mike Gorman (here)
...the killing of Iran's supreme religious leader: here is a man of Islamic faith, someone who has overseen terrorism

Dear Mike, re the Ayatollah 'overseeing terrorism', can you cite some examples or sources?

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
(she said) 35,000 protestors were put to death by the regime, according to her family contacts within Iran.

I very much doubt that's true. My guess is that this is more propaganda that your neighbors are sincerely believing, maybe coming from dissident groups in Iran itself.

[ThePythonicCow]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
My guess is that this is more propaganda

From what I've observed, for high tension events such as these, it's almost always the case that _all_ prominent, compelling, pronouncements made at or near the time of the events are propaganda.

Such high tension events, clearly driven by deep seated power(s), are sterile grounds for truth telling.

[sdv]

Arcturian108

So, one would think that you would label a country, its government and leaders, as evil and deserving of whatever violence you want to unleash on them, if they do the following:

Raping prisoners, sometimes with an object and in front of other prisoners.
Sexually abusing young women, underage girls, and even children among a group of the elite, of which only one is held accountable and the president keeps saying 'move along, nothing to see here'.
Torturing prisoners, who are imprisoned without trial, including stripping them of their clothes, tying them up suspended, and beating them and getting a dog to attack them.
Deliberately killing children, some only toddlers, by snipers shooting them in their head ... thousands
Killing babies in incubators.
Executing medics in a hail of bullets as they attempt to rescue a frightened little girl in the back of a car (just one example).

Or do you only regard this as evil and thus justifying an unprovoked war, specifically targetting children, if the story is about Iranians doing it, even though there is no actual evidence of Iranians doing this, but there is actually evidence (photographs, videos) of all of the above that I have listed ... of Americans and Israelis doing these things?

It requires an open heart but also immense resolve to access information about the evil that people do, and courage to speak up, but it is also easy to be manipulated into believing what you want to believe. Not picking sides means being against all forms of cruelty and barbarity and not supporting 'your team' beyond reason. One can fully support the Gazans in their resistance against Israeli aggression and be appalled at the October attacks on Israel that October.

I am not Iranian and although I try to stay informed and enjoy watching videos frim people who have visited (stunning architecture and landscapes and amazing bakeries!), it is not my place to decide what sort of government or laws they should have. I find the public executions and maiming in Saudi Arabia obscene but would not advocate violence against that land and its people to make them adhere to my standards and my morals. I suppose we all have different lines in the sand, and Americans are used to using violence and coercion and torture, etc. in all forms to 'spread democracy and freedom'. That is not my story, and if you do not want me to comment on the US, then stop bullying my country, and others, and spreading lies about it?!

I apologize if this feels very personal, but I find that in all the noise, it is sometimes useful when someone points out that I have 'fallen for fake news'. The online world is filled with really bad actors, but it is also a place where you can find many truth seekers. Personally, I think the truth seekers will prevail and those tech billionaires trying to control information and opinion will not.

[thirtythree]

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
Also conflicted - we have a neighbor from Iran, with family in Iran, who currently supports this removal of the Iran Islamic leadership, and strongly wishes it had been done months ago, before (she said) 35,000 protestors were put to death by the regime, according to her family contacts within Iran.

As services were down, she had not been able to contact family in Iran yet.

Lot's of disinformation as part of the psyop. In fact, Terrorist sleeper cells were activated in the wake of legitimate dis-content and subsequent protests by the mercantile community over dire state of the economy.

I'll spare the gory details but the number of those who lost their lives was under 3000 and the names of everyone who died were published here.

https://english.mojahedin.org/list-of-martyrs/

[Bruce G Charlton]

"35,000 protestors were put to death..."

Whatever the reality, people should realize that the claim of 35,000 deaths is nearly double the number of soldiers killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme!

Is this claim even remotely plausible? If we actually stop to think about some of the numbers bandied about in the media, it is often evident when we are being lied-to. And how gullible people are when it comes to numbers. And how this is cynically exploited.

A lot of this went on in 2020. e.g.: The UK media reported the terrifying devastation of Covid in India by saying that 200,000 people had supposedly died from it. But India has a population of about 1,300,000,000... In terms of the mortality rate of a disease across a large nation, an increase of 200K would (in practice) be undetectably small.

[Bill Ryan]

Zero Hedge's summary of Donald Trump's address to the nation, which ended a few minutes ago:

• https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitic...xiety-pentagon

Trump Claims 'We Will Easily Prevail' in Iran War, vows 'Whatever It Takes' in Open-Ended Timeline

Summary:

• President Trump opened Monday's Medal of Honor ceremony in the White House East Wing with a carefully prepared, somewhat brief statement on Operation Epic Fury.

• Speaking deliberatively, he spoke broadly on the rationale for ordering the attack on Iran, which is now in day three and has taken at least four American troop lives at this point.

• Trump vowed to "crush" the Iranian threat posed to the US, claiming that "we will easily prevail".

• He declared that already US forces have knocked out ten ships, and that the plan is to also ensure the Iranians "can't fund armies beyond borders".

• But high on the minds of Congressional leaders and the American public is: what's next? Trump gave a timeline of a "projected four to five weeks" for war with Iran, "but we can go longer" and this will involve "whatever it takes."

• He vowed to continue the mission with "unyielding resolve" - even amid reports that US Gulf allies UAE and Qatar are now lobbying allies to persuade Trump to end the Iran war soon (as the Gulf continues to feel the impact of Iran's retaliatory strikes).

• The President just committed the nation to another potentially open-ended war in the Middle East.

[Arcturian108]

Posted by sdv (here)
It is not unthinkable that such a large population as Iran would include people who would celebrate the targetting and killing of primary school children. There are sociopaths and psychopaths in every population. But there is also a massive PR campaign being broadcast by Western media. This is not a video game. It is real. Little children being targetted and killed, including at least one granchild of the supreme leader in the massive bomb dropped on his compound.

So, these 'protests' are theatre, a show being broadcast for Americans. Soon the population will be like the Israelis and will be saying that all Iranian children are destined to grow up to be evil terrorists, so it is justified yo kill them, or they are being used as 'human shields' and thus it is not your fault ... it is the evil regime that is at fault.

If you have an ounce of humanity left in you, you will be out on the streets and be screaming 'do not kill children in my name for any reason or under any circumstances'.

I should have replied earlier to this post, as it turns out the Islamic Iranian regime has admitted to accidentally targeting the school in Iran. https://twitter.com/ACommonSenseWay/...67002817282557

[shaberon]

This isn't propaganda, just announcements. Lebanese government has been sat in the yard:

We understand the Lebanese government’s inability to confront the brutal Zionist enemy that violates national sovereignty, occupies land, and poses a continuous threat to the country’s security and stability. We also understand its prerogative to decide on matters of war and peace, as well as its inability to implement and impose such decisions on an enemy that breaches national calm and persists in its aggressive war against Lebanon and its people....

IRGC warns Israeli residents to stay away from all military bases, security centers, and government institutions, and to leave ‘Israel’ entirely immediately: The coming strikes will be more intense and widespread.


Targeting curved within it:

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says the fate of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is uncertain following “purposeful and surprise” attacks on his office and the residence of the regime’s air force commander.

In a statement on Monday, the IRGC said Iranian Armed Forces heavily attacked the office of Israel’s criminal prime minister and the residence of commander of the Israeli air force.

They were hit during “purposeful and surprise” attacks by Kheybar missiles, the elite force stated.

According to the statement, the 10th phase of Iran’s successful missile attacks on occupied territories focuses on the Israeli regime’s premises.

Five hospitals and nuclear site attacked in Iran. No cease-fire or dialogue planned.

Eleventh wave incoming.

[Arcturian108]

Posted by sdv (here)
Arcturian108

So, one would think that you would label a country, its government and leaders, as evil and deserving of whatever violence you want to unleash on them, if they do the following:

Raping prisoners, sometimes with an object and in front of other prisoners.
Sexually abusing young women, underage girls, and even children among a group of the elite, of which only one is held accountable and the president keeps saying 'move along, nothing to see here'.
Torturing prisoners, who are imprisoned without trial, including stripping them of their clothes, tying them up suspended, and beating them and getting a dog to attack them.
Deliberately killing children, some only toddlers, by snipers shooting them in their head ... thousands
Killing babies in incubators.
Executing medics in a hail of bullets as they attempt to rescue a frightened little girl in the back of a car (just one example).

Or do you only regard this as evil and thus justifying an unprovoked war, specifically targetting children, if the story is about Iranians doing it, even though there is no actual evidence of Iranians doing this, but there is actually evidence (photographs, videos) of all of the above that I have listed ... of Americans and Israelis doing these things?

It requires an open heart but also immense resolve to access information about the evil that people do, and courage to speak up, but it is also easy to be manipulated into believing what you want to believe. Not picking sides means being against all forms of cruelty and barbarity and not supporting 'your team' beyond reason. One can fully support the Gazans in their resistance against Israeli aggression and be appalled at the October attacks on Israel that October.

I am not Iranian and although I try to stay informed and enjoy watching videos frim people who have visited (stunning architecture and landscapes and amazing bakeries!), it is not my place to decide what sort of government or laws they should have. I find the public executions and maiming in Saudi Arabia obscene but would not advocate violence against that land and its people to make them adhere to my standards and my morals. I suppose we all have different lines in the sand, and Americans are used to using violence and coercion and torture, etc. in all forms to 'spread democracy and freedom'. That is not my story, and if you do not want me to comment on the US, then stop bullying my country, and others, and spreading lies about it?!

I apologize if this feels very personal, but I find that in all the noise, it is sometimes useful when someone points out that I have 'fallen for fake news'. The online world is filled with really bad actors, but it is also a place where you can find many truth seekers. Personally, I think the truth seekers will prevail and those tech billionaires trying to control information and opinion will not.

I don't understand why you are addressing me personally, as I haven't responded to anything you have written on this thread, until just now when I responded to your post about Americans and Israelis targeting a school in Iran, which turns out to have been done by the Iranians themselves. I am not prepared to discuss atrocities committed on planet Earth since time immemorial. If you are South African, as your profile says, then I have never bullied your country on this forum that I am aware of.