Oman Gulf Oil Tankers on Fire, 1 Sunk (Tonkin v2.0?)

[goldenequity]

Al-Masdar News @TheArabSource
Iran says US, Mossad possibly behind oil tanker attack in Gulf of Oman
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...-gulf-of-oman/

Guy Elster @guyelster
BREAKING UAE foreign minister says Iran fingerprints clear on oil tanker attacks

Enrico Ivanov ☦ @Russ_Warrior
Oil tanker attacks in the Gulf have US fingerprints all over them.
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/2...-fingerprints/

[Origanalist]

Graham to Trump: Make Iran ‘Feel Pain’ — ‘Hit a Refinery, Sink Their Navy’

Partial transcript as follows:

HEWITT: Let’s turn to Iran. Earlier this morning, moments ago, the President of the United States said, “Iran did it;” the mine that didn’t explode “Had Iran written all over it.” He didn’t say what he is going to do, what do you think he ought to do about attacks on Gulf shipping Lindsey Graham?

GRAHAM: Make sure that the Iranians will never do it again because it hurt too much. If he doesn’t send a clear, unequivocal signal with pain attached, they will keep doing it. They are testing him. The president got out of the agreement. He’s put sanctions on Iran. He’s breaking the back of the Iranian government economically, they are pushing back, they are testing his will. One of the great minds of our time, General Keane, said there are a couple of options. One is, start sending naval escorts for commercial shipping in the Straights of Hormuz, that’s one thing to do —I don’t know how sustainable that is— the other thing is just basically sink their navy. Now, put them on notice, start escorting ships, and if there is another attack on commercial shipping in the Straights of Hormuz, just sink all these fast boats, just sink their navy.

HEWITT: That’s what President Reagan did in 1988, with Operation Praying Mantis. I’d like to hear Lindsey Graham’s assessment of this: They have a couple of major refinery complexes, maybe only two. They are attacking oil. Ought we to attack their refinery complexes because if you want to talk about bringing that country to a halt, that’s the way to do it.

GRAHAM: Well, this is why I like your show. You put options on the table that really hurt. The bottom line really here is that they are pushing back on multiple fronts now against President Trump —rocket man is still shooting rockets, Maduro is still in power, the Iranians are attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. I like the foreign policy of President Trump. He’s been the anti-Obama. But he’s got to get Iran put back in a box. This is a time of testing. They have hit four ships. They have attacked land-based pipelines, they haven’t felt anything yet, so if I were the president, attacking a refinery or sinking their navy would be an unequivocal signal: “I don’t want a war with Iran, but I don’t want Iran disrupting international navigation and freedom of the seas, and continue to be, you know, wrecking havoc, so, he’s got some options in the table.

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2019...nk-their-navy/

[Pauls' Revere]

FLASHBACK: The Tanker Wars 1987.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Will

[Firestarter]

I hate to tell ya, but in our Brave new world, the "authorities" never, ever have to provide evidence that their stories are correct. But "conspiracy theorists" can be banned and/or have their stories deleted when they disagree with the "official" story.
I have no "evidence" on what really happened here, but I can prove that (at least) some of the top officials in the Trump administration are pathological liars...


US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:

I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses.
It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.

John – bomb, bomb, bomb Iran – Bolton:

You know Winston Churchill said during World War Two that in wartime truth is so important it should be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.

If I had to say something I knew was false to protect American national security, I would do it.

[nikcers]

I hate to tell ya, but in our Brave new world, the "authorities" never, ever have to provide evidence that their stories are correct. But "conspiracy theorists" can be banned and/or have their stories deleted when they disagree with the "official" story.
I have no "evidence" on what really happened here, but I can prove that (at least) some of the top officials in the Trump administration are pathological liars...


US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo:



John – bomb, bomb, bomb Iran – Bolton:

Trump surrounds himself with these people because he knows if he is ruined they will go down with him. John Kiriakou said John Bolton wanted to run for president. Thats what makes the Bolton quote funny because Trump surrounds himself with a bodyguard of lies.

[Firestarter]

Trump surrounds himself with these people because he knows if he is ruined they will go down with him. John Kiriakou said John Bolton wanted to run for president. Thats what makes the Bolton quote funny because Trump surrounds himself with a bodyguard of lies.

I have to admit that I´m not to good at 3D chess that Trump supporters “believe” in...


In 2017, John Bolton (before he became Trump’s NSA) was awarded “The Guardian of Zion Award” by Rennert: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post6695133

[nikcers]

I have to admit that I´m not to good at 3D chess that Trump supporters “believe” in...


In 2017, John Bolton (before he became Trump’s NSA) was awarded “The Guardian of Zion Award” by Rennert: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post6695133

John Kiriakou is the source for what I have been reading. He also said that the Trump admin is blaming all of the foreign policy failures on John Bolton and that John Bolton wants to run for president. Who knows maybe John Kiriakou is part of the deep state..

[UWDude]

[AZJoe]

BabylonBee (sat) -
John Bolton: 'When Has The Government Ever Lied About Attacks On Ships In A Gulf Somewhere Just To Provoke War?'

[AZJoe]

[AZJoe]

[AZJoe]

Trump’s Pompeo’s claim is devoid of any thought. Quick initial impressions from Trump/Pompeo’s “smoking gun” video:

• Nothing in the video confirm the boat is even Iranian. One could just as easily claim is Saudi, or U.S. or Israeli, or UAE or Omani, or anyone else
• The video does not establish a “limpet” mine or anything at all attached to the ship. It is hard to tell if there is even anything being removed at all. From the movement of ther people if anything is being removed from the ship, it would appear a magnetic anchor tethering the boat to the ship.
• Interestingly the edited video is only 1 minute 40 seconds long. Where is the video showing the boat approaching the ship? Where is the rest of the video? Might it show on approach the crew attaching a magnetic tether to the ship? Why are they hiding all the rest of the video of what the boat did and its approach?
• The US government states the video was taken at 4:10 p.m. local time – approximately 10 hours after the explosion. So the US government and US Navy just left the smoking gun evidence sit there for ten hours to purportedly allow the alleged culprits to come back 10 hours later in broad daylight, after already rescuing crews, and remove the “smoking gun” evidence.
• The alleged Iranians supposedly came back to the “scene of the crime” 10 hours later, in broad daylight, wearing reflective vests, with a crew that appears to be up to 18 people on the boat to remove the “smoking gun” evidence that the US government just let sit there for 10 hours.
• The video itself is of such horrible quality as to call into question its use, alleged conclusions and legitimacy. The US government has bases all around the gulf including in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman as well as ships throughout the Persian gulf. Washington has made it a hotbed. US has surveillance drones, and surveillance planes and surveillance satellites watching everything throughout the gulf. And this alleged retrieving of the “smoking gun” evidence occurred ten hours after the blast. The US government would have had a litany of surveillance focused on the event by that time. Why is the only video horrendously grainy, out of focus, zooming in and out and shaky?
• Why is the video converted to black and white? This is not FLIR video, this is regular video. Why is this surveillance video converted to black and white?
• Why the US government let the alleged “smoking gun” evidence just sit there for ten hours to purportedly be retrieved by the alleged culprits?
• Why would Iran attack two ships carrying cargo for one of its prime customers – Japan, and especially while Shinzo Abe is in Iran meeting with Iranian’s leaders? Cui bono?
• Why would Iran attack a ship crewed by friendly nation Russian sailors? Cui bono?
• Who has motive to sabotage these ships and escalate tensions with Iran?
• The tanker crew witnesses say drones hit the tanker, not mines.

[AZJoe]

Seven Reasons To Be Highly Skeptical Of The Gulf Of Oman Incident

In a move that surprised exactly zero people,[Trump’s] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has wasted no time scrambling to blame Iran … Pompeo concluded before hastily shambling off, taking exactly zero questions.

Here are seven reasons to be extremely skeptical of everything Pompeo said:

1. [Trump's] Pompeo is a known liar, especially when it comes to Iran.
Pompeo has a well-established history of circulating blatant lies about Iran … he recently told an audience at Texas A&M University that when he was leading the CIA, “We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses.”

2. The US empire is known to use lies and false flags to start wars.
The US-centralized power alliance has an extensive and well-documented history of advancing preexisting military agendas using lies, false flags and psyops …

3. [Trump's] John Bolton has openly endorsed lying to advance military agendas.
I wrote an article about this last month because the Trump administration had already begun rapidly escalating against Iran in ways that happen to align perfectly with the longtime agendas of Trump’s psychopathic Iran hawk National Security Advisor. At that time people were so aware of the possibility that Bolton might involve himself in staging yet another Middle Eastern war based on lies that The Onion was already spoofing it. …
Bolton said. “You know Winston Churchill said during World War Two that in wartime truth is so important it should be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies.”
“Do you really believe that?” asked an incredulous Napolitano.
“Absolutely,” Bolton replied.
“You would lie in order to preserve the truth?”
“If I had to say something I knew was false to protect American national security, I would do it,” Bolton answered.

This would be the same John Bolton who has been paid exorbitant speaking fees by the pro-regime change MEK terror cult, promising the cult in a 2017 speech that they’d be celebrating regime change in Tehran together before 2019. This would also be the same John Bolton who once threatened to murder an OPCW official’s children if he didn’t stop getting in the way of his Iraq war agenda.

4. Using false flags to start a war with Iran is already an established idea in the DC swamp.
Back in 2012 at a forum for the Washington Institute Of Near East Policy think tank, the group’s Director of Research Patrick Clawson openly talked about the possibility of using a false flag to provoke a war with Iran, citing the various ways the US has done exactly that with its previous wars.
“I frankly think that crisis initiation is really tough, and it’s very hard for me to see how the United States president can get us to war with Iran,” Clawson began. … “Some people might think that Mr. Roosevelt wanted to get us into the war… you may recall we had to wait for Pearl Harbor. Some people might think that Mr. Wilson wanted to get us into World War One; you may recall we had to wait for the Lusitania episode. Some people might think that Mr. Johnson wanted to get us into Vietnam; you may recall we had to wait for the Gulf of Tonkin episode. We didn’t go to war with Spain until the USS Maine exploded. And may I point out that Mr. Lincoln did not feel that he could call out the Army until Fort Sumter was attacked, which is why he ordered the commander at Fort Sumter to do exactly that thing which the South Carolinians said would cause an attack.”

“So if, in fact, the Iranians aren’t going to compromise, it would be best if somebody else started the war,” Clawson continued. “One can combine other means of pressure with sanctions. I mentioned that explosion on August 17th. We could step up the pressure. I mean look people, Iranian submarines periodically go down. Some day, one of them might not come up. Who would know why? … We can do a variety of things, if we wish to increase the pressure (I’m not advocating that) but I’m just suggesting that this is not an either/or proposition — just sanctions have to succeed or other things. We are in the game of using covert means against the Iranians. We could get nastier at that.”

5. [Trump's] US State Department has already been running psyops to manipulate the public Iran narrative.
Outrage on Capitol Hill over completely unacceptable US-funded scheme to shape Iran debate. The @IranDisinfo troll campaign targeted American citizens critical of Trump’s Iran policy and accused them of being loyal to Tehran regime.

Me and @borzou https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-iran-congress-meeting-money-trump-conflict-a8954191.html …

Outrage on Capitol Hill over ‘completely unacceptable’ US-funded sch…
United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that has targeted American citizens critical of the administration’s hardline Iran policy and accused critics of independent.co.uk
State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff at a closed-door meeting on Monday that a $1.5 million troll farm had gone “beyond the scope of its mandate” by aggressively smearing American critics of the Trump administration’s Iran policy as propagandists for the Iranian government, according to a new report from The Independent. That “mandate” had reportedly consisted of “countering propaganda from Iran”, also known as conducting anti-Iran propaganda. …

6. The Gulf of Oman narrative makes no sense.
Here we go again. US Empire creating a pretext to go to war with Iran. It makes no sense that Iran would provoke a war with US Empire while Iran tries to salvage the nuclear deal with Europe. This situation looks manufactured as hell. The pro-war US media can’t wait to sell this.

One of the ships damaged in the attacks was Japanese-owned, and the other was bound for Japan. This happened just as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was in Tehran attempting to negotiate a de-escalation between the US and Iran with Trump’s blessing , and just after Iran had released a prisoner accused of conducting espionage for the US …
Iran has been conducting itself with remarkable restraint in the face of relentless sanctions and provocations from the US and its allies; it wouldn’t make much sense for it to suddenly abandon that restraint with attacks on sea vessels, then rescue their crew, then deny perpetrating the attacks, during a time of diplomatic exchanges and while trying to preserve the nuclear deal with Europe. …

7. Even if Iran did perpetrate the attack, [Trump's] Pompeo would still be lying.
Pompeo’s statement uses the words “unprovoked” twice and “Iran’s provocative acts” once, explicitly claiming that the US empire was just minding its own business leaving Iran alone when it was attacked out of the blue by a violent aggressor. Sometimes the things put out by the US State Department feel like they’re conducting experiments on us, just to test the limits of our stupidity.
As noted in this article by Moon of Alabama and this discussion on the Ron Paul Liberty Report, the US has been provoking Iran with extremely aggressive and steadily tightening sanctions, which means that even if Tehran is behind the attacks, it would not be the aggressor and the attacks would most certainly not have been “unprovoked”. Economic sanctions are an act of war; if China were to do to America’s economy what America is doing to Iran’s, the US would be in a hot war with China immediately. …
Either way, we have seen exactly zero evidence supporting Pompeo’s claims, … Knowing what we know about the US-centralized empire and its pre-existing regime change agenda against Iran, there is no reason to believe Pompeo and many reasons not to.

[goldenequity]

[nikcers]

Does the whole sanctions against Iran thing have anything to do with China? Where do they buy their oil from if they can't buy it from Iran? Does it effect the value of the Chinese currency differently they don't buy it from Iran and buy it from other countries?

[goldenequity]

[goldenequity]

https://twitter.com/Ian56789/status/1140646152548823040





Ron Paul @ronpaul
THANK YOU! Today's Liberty Report - https://youtu.be/wYeMBpAkOko - had the largest live audience ever! Thanks to you, we are getting through!
Join us in August to storm Washington DC with our non-interventionist foreign policy. More info and tickets here: http://ronpaulinstitute.org/conference

[goldenequity]

https://twitter.com/knmd8/status/1140723818220150785

[goldenequity]

[goldenequity]

https://twitter.com/ShoebridgeC/stat...82519508754432

https://twitter.com/Russ_Warrior/sta...29641780191232



Sometimes it (doesn't) FEELS GOOD ta be a gangsta.
(Japan grows weary of being an imperial stooge. so does Germany...

https://twitter.com/Russ_Warrior/sta...25729232736256

https://twitter.com/Russ_Warrior/sta...30786439352320

https://twitter.com/Russ_Warrior/sta...27102061850624

==========

there goes N. Korea...

Chinese President Xi Jinping to make first official trip to North Korea this week
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...ial-trip-north




and here comes India... (and Pakistan...)

https://twitter.com/Russ_Warrior/sta...73181763346432






the 'point' is: Iran is not isolated... on the contrary... world resistance grows.

[goldenequity]

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/sta...69410452021254

[nikcers]

If Iran makes a deal with the United States then that spells an end to the proxy war in Yemen that the UK is secretly waging. They would lose a hell of a lot of money if that happens.

[Brian4Liberty]

Where will they be stationed? As it will be mostly symbolic, they could place these troops on the borders of Israel. That way they can be productive while over there. As a bonus, there will be no Democrat protestations or legal challenges.

[goldenequity]

According to US Account of Tanker Attack US Navy Didn’t Bother to Pick Up Smoking Gun Evidence of Iranian Guilt
If USS Bainbridge was aware of a limpet mine at 11am, why would it still be there a full 5 hours later, when they claim the Iranians removed it?

If Iran makes a deal with the United States then that spells an end to the proxy war in Yemen that the UK is secretly waging. They would lose a hell of a lot of money if that happens.

U R right...
sickening to think that UK NEEDS the 'blood money' to prop up their struggling state.
They're all struggling.... EU expecting only a 0.1% expansion/GDP rise in coming quarter. That's not enuf by a long shot
(to sustain the growing population social/demands)..

We are seeing the reactions now starting to manifest:
everyone on the GLOBE would rather eat dirt than submit to the economic terror.
To his face.... they endure, tolerate and smile.
behind his back.... they plan, assemble and coordinate.
Not (just) the 'governments'... the 'rabble' are livid and enraged 'anti-empire'.


1950s Anti-American Propaganda Is Back in Style in China
Trump's trade war has Beijing resurrecting defiant material form when China was in a shooting war with the US in Korea


Europe. Latin America. Asia. Sub-Continent. Dark Continent. all

Russia, EU Keen to Drop Dollar for Euro (and Ruble!) in Mutual Trade


Russia and China (COSTCO) to Jointly Transport Siberan LNG to Asian and Western Markets
A state-owned joint venture will operate a fleet of ice-breaking tankers



Modi Discovers Eurasia, Swings Back From US to China and Russia


https://www.jpost.com//International...ng-grip-592609

Russia’s Reserves Pass the $500 Billion Mark, Close In on Pre-Sanctions High
Just 20 percent of that is dollars



The Empire Jesus (ain't my Jesus) nope.

Rapture Christian Pompeo Believes US War on Iran Would Be Helping Out God
"It's a never ending battle until... the Rapture" - Mike Pompeo






Younger Evangelicals Are No Longer Reflexively Pro-Israel and Anti-Arab
Could have a big impact on future US policy in the Middle East

[AZJoe]

So the Washington now released a few stills from their previously released video. amazingly the stills are less grainy, higher resolution and in color. This establishes that the prior video was highly edited before release. Why?
Why can't we have the full video at this resolution and in color? What are they hiding?

And when I say full video, I mean full video, not just the selected 1 minute 40 seconds. We want to see the entire of the boat approaching the ship.

And doesn't it seem highly convenient that this "smoking gun" evidence was left there on the ship in plain sight for many hours and the US government with all its high tech satellite surveillance, plane surveillance, drone surveillance, helicopters, ships and everything else they have in the area was not able to document that evidence or go get it. But they conveniently left it there for a small boat to come back many hours later in broad daylight and under perhaps a myriad of active surveillance and retrieve the alleged "smoking gun" that Washington left.

[goldenequity]

[goldenequity]

https://twitter.com/NewsBreaking/sta...44955032289285