The Wall Street Journal’s headline grabbing exclusive reporting on Thursday night told us: “Israel shared new intelligence with the U.S. that it said indicated a fresh Iranian plan to kill President Trump.” That explains why earlier this week at the NATO summit, Donald Trump angrily lashed out at Iran’s leaders, broke off peace talks and then bombed Iran.
And all of that is exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to happen—which is why he peddled this (very likely) fabricated story per Retired US Army Major Harrison Mann. I spoke to Mann—who served as executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East/Africa Regional Center—on Thursday after the news broke who gave us much needed context being ignored by corporate media.
First, as Mann explained, “Israel has a has a very storied public history of fabricating intelligence.” He added that Netanyahu’s regime “fabricated intelligence in the lead-up to the Iran war, when they said Iran was on the verge of a nuclear weapon. They also convinced Trump that Iran was going to fold after a weekend of bombing.” Even in last year’s 12 day military action in June against Iran, Netanyahu’s regime “fabricated intelligence to help get Trump into” that conflict.
Netanyahu—who has rightfully been charged with war crimes by the ICC for the “crimes against humanity” he committed in Gaza--has openly opposed ending the war with Iran and the US entering into peace deal. His goal is to pressure the United States to spend our tax dollars and risk the lives of Americans to protect Israel. To be blunt, if you were the leader of Israel, you also likely would want America to bear the costs of a war to protect your nation. But that is why past Presidents have all rebuffed Netanyahu’s efforts to convince them to do his fighting given it’s not in the interest of the United States.
All of that is what led Mann to conclude that the intelligence Netanyahu peddled to Trump “is almost certainly fabricated.”
Mann is not alone in openly raising questions about whether Netanyahu is lying about this intelligence. Democratic Rep. Adam Smith raised that very point Thursday night while on CNN. The Washington state member of Congress explained bluntly, “it’s easy to see that Israel would want to sort of buck up Trump, make him more willing to take on Iran more strongly. Netanyahu has been pushing for that tougher stance, more hawkish approach to Iran for quite some time now.”
Smith continued, “Israel certainly has that interest.” Adding, “So it’s hard to know. It’s hard to know exactly what that intel is.”
In other words, once again Netanyahu was trying to get Trump to sacrifice American lives and our tax dollars for his agenda. And as Mann flagged, Netanyahu is not done in this regard. His latest campaign is to convince Trump to station a large number of US troops in Israel—which again risks the lives of Americans to defend that nation.
Trump’s war against Iran should have never happened. It doesn’t matter if—as reported by the NY Times--Netanyahu persuaded Trump via flattery and lies to wage an illegal war to protect Israel’s interests at the expense of the United States and the world’s economy.
The buck stops with Trump and his GOP. They gave us this war they lost. And now they are losing the peace. Come November we have to make sure they lose in record numbers at the ballot box. Taking both the House and the Senate is the way to prevent more illegal wars by Trump in the final two years he’s in the White House.
I hope you check out my interview of Harrison Mann who now works with “Win Without War.” He also insightfully details why Trump has not reached a lasting peace deal yet and why it will likely take more time to do so given Trump hasn’t grasped that he lost the war:
I totally agree with Mann, the threat against Trump coming from Netanyahu is bullshit, he wants Trump to ramp up the war.
Netanyahu knows Trump has some form of Alzheimer's and has used it to his advantage. It's really yucky.