Iran has had every right to bomb the US since 2010 when Strongman Obama destroyed Iran’s nuclear facility via Stuxnet cyber attack: “It is only a matter of time, most experts believe, before it [the US] becomes the target of the same kind of weapon that the Americans have used, secretly, against Iran.”…6/1/2012, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,“ NY Times, David E. Sanger…“Stuxnet, a computer worm that hit and may have severely damaged Iranian nuclear facilities, is the type of cyberweapon that could broadly harm the United States, undermining both society and government ability to defend the nation, says a strongly worded report to Congress.”…12/15/2010, “Stuxnet ‘virus’ could be altered to attack US facilities, report warns," CSMonitor.com,Mark Clayton
………………………..
May 24, 2019, “Trump Wants to Leave the Middle East. He’s Not Getting His Wish.” The Atlantic, Kathy Gilsinan
“The new deployment is a small fraction of the tens of thousands of troops already there. [Why are 60,000-80,000 troops there when they’re desperately needed on the US southern border?] But it’s designed to send a signal to Iran.”
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Katie Wheelbarger said that the new troops would not be going to Iraq and Syria, but would augment the U.S. presence in the region. The U.S. currently maintains between 60,000 and 80,000 troops, both at sea and on land bases, in the Middle East. The extra troops, Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said in a statement, are a “prudent defensive measure and intended to reduce the possibility of future hostilities.”
At the briefing Friday, Vice Admiral Michael Gilday, the director of the Joint Staff, for the first time attributed recent attacks on foreign oil tankers to the Iranians, and confirmed earlier media reports that U.S. officials were concerned when they observed what they said were Iranian missiles being moved on small boats.
The Defense Department made the announcement just a day after President Trump, while declaring Iran “a very dangerous player” and “a nation of terror,” said he did not think such a deployment would be needed. “I don’t think we’re going to need them, I really don’t,” he said, though he said he’d send troops if necessary. And so he will, notwithstanding his oft-repeated desire to avoid war and his vocal distaste for foreign entanglements. Just Thursday he remarked of the Middle East, “I don’t think we ever should have been there, okay? I inherited this mess.” Yet he has also twice launched strikes against the Syrian regime in response to chemical-weapons attacks, reinforced the United States position in Afghanistan, and continued drone strikes against militants in Somalia and Yemen.”…
(continuing): “With
the[alleged] territorial defeat of ISIS, which has coincided with the
Trump administration’s escalating economic-pressure campaign against the
Islamic Republic [of Iran? There are multiple “Islamic Republics.”],
the incentives for cooperation between the U.S. and Iranian-backed
proxies in the Middle East appear to be fraying. Earlier this month, National Security Adviser John Bolton, citing unspecified intelligence of Iranian threats, announced that the U.S. would send a carrier strike group to the region. The Pentagon followed that up with an announcement that it would send antimissile batteries—though these were only a partial replacement of military assets withdrawn from the region weeks before. On Friday, Gilday cited “multiple credible reports” that he said showed Iranian proxy groups planning to attack U.S. forces. [“US forces?” Why are “US forces” sitting there to begin with when they’re desperately needed on the US border? Answer: Because the US is a failed state, defined as one which can’t or won’t defend its borders.] Pentagon officials have characterized the new deployments as aimed at force protection and deterrence-essentially, defensive moves. The administration’s critics, and particularly Democrats in Congress who have been briefed on the intelligence, don’t buy this explanation;
they have repeatedly cited the risks of provoking Iran into a possible
[multi-billion dollar US taxpayer funded] military confrontation.“I’m
gravely concerned that we’ve got folks who are encouraging or tolerating his bumbling forward into a major deployment into the Middle East
without a clear strategy,” the Democratic senator Chris Coons said in a
television interview earlier this week. A spokesman for Coons, who was
briefed on the intelligence about Iranian threats earlier this week,
told me in an email that he hadn’t seen much from the administration
that he hadn’t seen in news reports.Administration allies such as
[completely useless neocon] Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas,
have voiced more alarm about what the intelligence shows. “There can be
no doubt that we’ve seen serious, credible, and increased reporting of
threats from Iran across the Middle East—whether [from] their own forces like the Revolutionary Guard corps or through their proxies like the rebel groups they support in places like Yemen, or paramilitary forces in Iraq,” he told Fox News.”…
……..
[Ed. note:
Who gives a damn what neocon, sell out US Senators say on Fox News? US
military should all return to the US and in any case have no business
whatsoever being posted in Yemen or Iraq. The US has a wide open 2000
mile southern border and all we hear about is so-and-so might get close to the 80,000 US “troops” in the Middle East.] (continuing): “Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Shanahan insisted: “Our job is deterrence. This is not about [yet another multi-billion dollar bombing scam] war. We have a mission there in the Middle East: Freedom of navigation; counterterrorism in Syria [A massive lie–US creates and finances terrorism in Syria], and Iraq [who invited the US into Iraq?]; defeating al-Qaeda in Yemen [Another massive lie. US partners with Al Qaeda in the Middle East]; and the security of Israel and Jordan. [“Security?” What “security” do you provide in the US on the US border?] Wheelbarger and Gilday said repeatedly on Friday that the U.S. does not seek a military conflict with Iran. “It’s right to do all we can to ensure protection for U.S. forces. [“Protection for US forces?” Uninvited US “forces” are meddling in a foreign country and on top of that US taxpayers have to pay billions extra so no one will step on the toes of US “forces” occupying another country?] The one enemy actively attacking our forces, however, is ISIS”…
(continuing): “–including a suicide attack in Syria last week. Iran has not attacked U.S. forces since 2011,” a former senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue, told The Atlantic. [Did the “official” mention US 2010 Stuxnet attack on Iran, effectively bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities?] “The aim should be to keep it that way, through a combination of deterrence and diplomacy. There does not seem to be much if any of the latter.”
12/15/2010, “Stuxnet ‘virus’ could be altered to attack US facilities, report warns,“ CSMonitor.com, Mark Clayton
“Stuxnet, a computer worm that hit and may have severely damaged Iranian nuclear facilities, is the type of cyberweapon that could broadly harm the United States, undermining both society and government ability to defend the nation, says a strongly worded report to Congress.
A successful broad-based attack on the US, using new variants of the Stuxnet weapon, could do enough widespread damage to critical infrastructure – including water, power, transportation, and other services – that it “threatens to cause harm to many activities deemed critical to the basic functioning of modern society,” said the little-noticed report issued by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) Dec. 9. [2010]
Terrorist groups, previously deemed not to have much independent ability to launch damaging cyberattacks, could potentially purchase or even rent a Stuxnet-based variant from organized crime groups to launch an infrastructure attack on the US, the report warns.”…
………………….
Added: Jan. 2011 article, US should expect consequences: “Countries hostile to the United States may feel justified in launching their own attacks against US facilities, perhaps even using a modified Stuxnet code,” the Institute for Science and International Security in a Dec. 23, 2011 report:
1/3/2011, “Stuxnet attack on Iran nuclear program came about a year ago, report says,” CSMonitor.com, Mark Clayton
“Stuxnet attack could result in harm to US interests in the future.
“Countries hostile to the United States may feel justified in launching their own attacks against US facilities, perhaps even using a modified Stuxnet code,” ISIS [Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), Dec. 23 report, “a little-noticed analysis“] concluded. “Such an attack could shut down large portions of national power grids or other critical infrastructure using malware designed to target critical components inside a major system, causing a national emergency.”“
……………………….
Added: “It is only a matter of time, most experts believe, before it [the US] becomes the target of the same kind of weapon that the Americans have used, secretly, against Iran.”…
6/1/2012, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,“ NY Times, David E. Sanger
“Achieving,
with computer code, what until then could be accomplished only by
bombing a country or sending in agents to plant explosives….“This is the first attack of a major nature in which a cyber attack was used to effect physical destruction,” said former CIA chief Michael V. Hayden….It
is only a matter of time, most experts believe, before it [the US]
becomes the target of the same kind of weapon that the Americans have
used, secretly, against Iran.”…
...............
No comments:
Post a Comment