- Dagny
9 May 2019 - Breakfast News
The arrows of spying, collusion, and election meddling are pointing at Obama and the public is finally getting introduced to the idea that the spying on Trump’s went all the way to the top.
Thus the Deep State needs a distraction. Foreign powers that bought Obama, Clinton et al need to protect their “assets” in the US. The Mueller gambit that they relied upon has failed. The majority wants an investigation of the spying by the Obama administration.
So it may not be a surprise that out of the blue, a war is brewing in the Middle East and things are happening with China:
Trump administration forces China to sell the Port of Long Beach
By Chriss Street
The Trump Administration's Department of Homeland Security has forced China's state-owned Cosco* to sell the Port of Long Beach over security concerns.
China's Cosco Shipping Holdings, which bought out its 75 percent–owned Hong Kong–based Orient Overseas International (OOCL), was forced to sell its Port of Long Beach Container Terminal ownership to Macquarie Infrastructure Partners for $1.78 billion.
The Obama administration had no problems with OOCL signing a 40-year lease with the City of Long Beach in 2012 for control of America's second largest and most automated container handling operation. The sweetheart deal was part of the "Middle Harbor Redevelopment Program" to fund a $1.5-billion expansion through 2020.
But one of the first major actions of the Trump administration's Department of Homeland Security in March 2017 was issuing a "Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S." national security hold on Cosco's acquisition of a former U.S. Navy port facility.
China operates six of the world's ten busiest container ports. The Chinese government has also funded the construction and operations of 43 ports in 35 countries under its "One Belt and One Road" (OBOR) initiative launched five years ago, according to China's Ministry of Transport.
As part of its efforts to gain asset dominance, China has directed its state-owned companies to exclusively buy products and services from other Chinese state-owned enterprises. As a result, China International Marine Containers Group has become the world's largest maker of shipping containers and Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries has gained a 70 percent international market share for port cranes, and now exports to 300 ports in 100 countries.
Under the Macquarie acquisition terms, Orient Overseas International will pocket a $1.29 billion profit and still control vessel and rail traffic at the container facilities for the next twenty years.
The Military had a training exercise at the Long Beach port. The same week where they had the one on Wilshire Blvd. The one where Blackhawks landed and people in bio suits extracted boxes of who knows what.
Trump Tweet:
The United States has been losing, for many years, 600 to 800 Billion Dollars a year on Trade. With China we lose 500 Billion Dollars. Sorry, we’re not going to be doing that anymore!
Cargo carriers can be covert missile launchers:
The mobile missile was carried out to sea along with its modular command trailer and launcher system.
The launch was conducted under simulated operational procedures in order to evaluate the system’s performance. Once clear of the ship, the missile was tracked as it successfully homed in on its land-based target.
According to data released by the company, the solid-fuel missiles can travel 400km in just under 10 minutes.
Earlier this week, Israel’s state-run Aerospace Industries (IAI) announced it had successfully tested a ‘Long-Range Artillery’ (LORA) missile system from a shipping container attached to a truck parked on the deck of a cargo ship.
IAI promotional materials says that the self-contained missile system could be easily loaded on to any vessel with enough space for standard shipping containers. As the command module carries all the equipment necessary to launch and guide the missiles, there is no need to make any modifications to the ship.
This means any cargo vessel can become a surprise combatant overnight, and hide in plain sight among the shipping lanes.But merchant ships armed in such a manner are likely to become one-shot weapons. Lacking any form of defensive measures and even speed, counter-strikes will almost certainly be successful.
Israel is not the only nation exploring the potential of hidden missile systems. Russia has reportedly recently tested launching its 3M-54 Kalibr cruise missile from concealed shipping container launchers.
An Iron Dome anti-missile system fires an interceptor missile:
After the weekend’s fighting between Hamas and the Israeli army, some Israelis have raised questions about the strength of their country’s missile defenses.
Over the course of the weekend, Hamas and Islamic Jihad launched nearly 700 rockets from Gaza at Israel, killing four people and injuring more than 200. According to Haaretz, of the 690 rockets launched from Gaza, Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted 240.
The number of unintercepted rockets and Israeli fatalities sparked inquiry about the effectiveness of Iron Dome, and whether Hamas and Islamic Jihad have found a way to thwart the system.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled a visit to Germany on Tuesday, just hours before he was due to arrive in Berlin for talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"Unfortunately, we must reschedule the Berlin meetings due to pressing issues," a State Department official said in a statement posted by the US Embassy in Berlin.
"We look forward to rescheduling this important set of meetings," the statement added.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned the United States is watching a credible threat from Iran and acting accordingly.
"We have continued to see activity that leads us to believe escalation that may be taking place so we're taking all the appropriate actions both from a security perspective as well our ability to make sure that the President has a wide range of options in the event that something should actually take place," Pompeo said. "As Secretary of State I have a responsibility to keep the officers that work for me safe each and every day, all around the world. That includes Irbil and Baghdad, our facilities in Oman and all around the Middle East and so anytime we receive threat reporting, things that raise concerns, we do everthing we can both to do all that we can to make sure that those planned or contemplated attacks don't take place and to make sure that we've got the right security posture. The American people should know we've done that."
The deployment of American military assets to the Middle East continues to ramp up following national security advisor John Bolton's Sunday night statements warning the US is prepared to send "a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime”.
Citing "possible attack by Iran" against US troops in the region, four B-52 bombers are now on their way to the Middle East as part of Sunday's announced USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group deployment.
According to details revealed by CBS News:
Two of the bombers are expected to leave Tuesday from Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, arriving at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Wednesday, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports.
On Monday Axios published a report by Israeli correspondent Barak Ravid which identified Israel as behind the intelligence warning the White House appears to be basing its information on.
"Israel passed information on an alleged Iranian plot to attack U.S. interests in the Gulf to the U.S. before national security adviser John Bolton threatened Iran with 'unrelenting force' last night, senior Israeli officials told me," Ravid wrote in the Axios report.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-07/four-b-52-bombers-deployed-deter-possible-attack-iran
And Trump is being even nicer than usual to our military:
On March 20th, 2009, Army Ranger 1st Lieutenant Michael Behenna was sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing Ali Mansur, a known Al Qaeda operative while serving in Iraq. Mansur was known to be a member of an Al Qaeda cell operating in the lieutenant’s area of operation and Army intelligence believed he organized an attack on Lt. Behenna’s platoon in April 2008 which killed two U.S. soldiers and injured two more. Army intelligence ordered the release of Mansur and Lt. Behenna was ordered to return the terrorist to his home.
During the return of Mansur, Lt. Behenna again questioned the Al Qaeda member for information about other members of the terrorist cell, and financial supporters. During this interrogation, Mansur attacked Lt. Behenna, who killed the terrorist in self-defense. The government subsequently prosecuted Lt. Behenna for premeditated murder.
In 2014 Michael Behenna was offered parole after serving 5 years for killing the Al-Qaeda operative in 2008. Behenna was serving a 15-year sentence in a military prison at Fort Leavenworth.
Assimilate or go home says Switzerland…
In the latest move to deny citizenship to anyone who chooses not to assimilate with Swiss culture, authorities have rejected the naturalization application of two Muslim girls who refused to take required swimming lessons at school because boys would be present in the pool.
The girls, ages 12 and 14, who live in the northern city of Basel, had applied for Swiss citizenship several months ago, but their request was denied, Swiss media reported Tuesday.
The girls, whose names were not disclosed, said their religion prevents them from participating in compulsory swimming lessons with males in the pool at the same time. Their naturalization application was rejected because the sisters did not comply with the school curriculum, Basel authorities said.
“Whoever doesn’t fulfill these conditions violates the law and therefore cannot be naturalized,” Stefan Wehrle, president of the naturalization committee, told TV station SRF on Tuesday. The case shows how those who don’t follow Swiss rules and customs won’t become citizens, even if they have lived in the country for a long time, are fluent in one of the national languages — German, French or Italian — and are gainfully employed. In April, members of an immigrant family in the Basel area were denied citizenship because they wore sweatpants around town and did not greet passersby — a sure sign that they were not sufficiently assimilated, the naturalization board claimed.
Another recent case sparked widespread outrage in Switzerland when two Muslim brothers refused to shake hands with their female teacher, also citing religious restrictions. Shaking hands with a teacher is a common practice in Swiss schools.
U.S. revokes citizenship of Portland’s largest mosque’s imam
By Maxine Bernstein | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Updated May 6, 5:57 PM; Posted May 6, 5:35 PM
In October, federal government lawyers told a federal appeals court that Kariye was placed on the no-fly list based on his history as a "mujahedeen fighter in Afghanistan against the Russians,'' as well as his expressed support for "violent jihad'' in conversations recorded between a cooperating informant and two members of the Portland Seven. They were a group of American Muslims from the Portland area who were prosecuted and convicted of trying to join al-Qaida forces in their fight against the United States military and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye, the former imam of Portland’s largest mosque, arrived in Somaliland this weekend, and the United States has revoked his citizenship. The government had arranged for Kariye, who is on the government’s ‘no fly list,’’ to travel back to his homeland after reaching a settlement agreement with him in January.
The U.S. government has revoked the U.S. citizenship of the former imam of Portland’s largest mosque after he arrived in Somaliland last week.
Mohamed Sheikh Abdirahman Kariye is on the government’s no-fly list, but the government arranged for him to travel back to his homeland after reaching a settlement with Kariye in January.
Under the deal, Kariye agreed not to challenge an order revoking his citizenship and acknowledged having provided false information to immigration officials in July 1997 when he had applied for U.S. naturalization.
The revocation of Kariye’s U.S. citizenship falls at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Calls to the Islamic Center of Portland were not returned on Monday.
https://www.oregonlive.com/crime/2019/05/us-revokes-citizenship-of-portland-mosques-imam.html
Sri Lanka Expels hundreds of Muslims and Islamic clerics:
With churches closed again yesterday amid the heightened security since Islamist bombers struck services and three luxury hotels, a minister said that 600 foreign citizens who had overstayed their visas had been expelled. Among them were 200 Muslim clerics. The authorities are still investigating the local group behind the bombings which forged ties with the Islamic State before the attacks.