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On July 23rd, US President Donald Trump swore in the new US Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Mark Esper is a former lobbyist for Raytheon.
Raytheon is the third-largest US defence contractor. Raytheon is the manufacturer of Paveway precision-guided missiles Congress has sought to block from sale to Saudi Arabia over concerns about civilian casualties in Yemen. Trump supports the weapons transfer and just vetoed the disapproval passed by the House last week.
An Army veteran, Esper had served as a congressional aide and a Pentagon official under Republican President George W Bush, before working for Raytheon. He has been Army secretary since November 2017.
“The nominee is beyond qualified. His record of public service is beyond impressive. His commitment to serving our service members if beyond obvious. And the need for a Senate-confirmed secretary of defence is beyond urgent,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said.
Immediately, after assuming office, he took the same song that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan was singing before, which was basically whatever US National Security Adviser John Bolton said.
ILLUSTRATIVE
In his first media briefing on July 24th, he spoke on various topics, including what an honor being Defense Secretary is and namely the Persian Gulf and Iran.
He provided some information on “Operation Sentinel” (HINT: not to be confused with the Operation Freedom Sentinel in Afghanistan) which is the US plan of ensuring safety of passage in the Persian Gulf, and specifically through the Strait of Hormuz and deterring alleged Iranian aggression.
“Q: Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask you about Operation Sentinel. As you know, the Europeans have created their own maritime security force. Give us an update on Operation Sentinel and how would you work with the Europeans? Are you talking with them about a — some sort of a command and control? Because they claim they’re going to have their own for the European effort.
SEC. ESPER: Yeah, clearly I didn’t have the chance in the last two hours to talk to them, but they — they are trying to pursue something I — I describe as complimentary, if you will. You know, what we said all along is the key thing is here — are two-fold, one is maintaining freedom of navigation in the Strait — of course, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman — and then secondly is deterring provocative actions from Iran.
And so whether we do that as one big group or as subgroups, I think as long as it compliments one another — there will be clearly coordination between us all, CENTCOM will be the coordinating authority. I will be down at CENTCOM next week, I am traveling down there to — just to check in with them, to get a briefing on a number of issues.
So I think it’s all helpful, it’s all sending the same messages we’re trying to send. That is freedom of navigation and no provocative acts in the Strait, and we’ve seen provocative acts obviously in the last, what, week or two since the first shoot down of our drone.”
Esper furthermore praised the European initiative, that was recently announced by the UK and said that it would complement the US one, regardless of the two being allegedly unrelated.
“No, I think it — I think it’s all complimentary. We — you know, this is not — this is something where all countries who — you know, most countries who transit the Strait should have an interest in this and want to participate and want to provide some type of forces to — to, again, ensure navigation of the Strait, freedom of the seas, and to deter provocative behavior.
So I — it’s — it’s all complimentary, it all works. The key is making sure we do those two things.”
He did, however, say that the US would actually provide intelligence to allies so that they can keep their own merchant ships safe, US warships would not escort ships that aren’t US-flagged.
“The key issues are two-fold: one is maintaining freedom of navigation in the Strait [of Hormuz], the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. The second is deterring provocative action from Iran,” he said.
He said that these actions would be to the benefit of “most countries.”
“Most countries who transit the strait have an interest in this and should want to provide forces to ensure navigation of the strait, freedom of the seas and deter provocative behavior. It’s all complementary, it all works,” Esper said.
“The Brits are trying to escort their ships. We’re escorting our ships to the degree that the risk demands it. I assume that other countries will escort their ships.”
In terms of U.S. presence in the region, Esper said forces in the Middle East would maintain a presence around potential danger areas but stopped short of saying it would escort all American ships to prevent their seizure by the IRGCN.
“We would want to make sure we have the capacity to make sure that doesn’t happen. And in some cases that may be strictly an overhead capability. It may mean that there is a U.S. naval warship within proximity to deter that,” Esper said.
“I don’t necessarily mean that every U.S.-flagged ship going through the strait has a destroyer right behind it.”
Britain’s already doing a marvelous job, after the Stena Impero was seized by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on July 19th, after it wandered into Iranian waters, after Iran allegedly warned it, but to no avail.
Most recently, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani suggested that a tanker exchange might be possible – the UK-flagged Stena Impero, for the Iranian tanker seized in Gibraltar.
“Should they be committed to international frameworks and give up their wrong actions, including what they did in Gibraltar, they will receive a proportional response from Iran.”
Whether this concentration of forces would lead to anything positive or spark an accidental war comes down to speculation and anticipation.
MORE ON THE TOPIC:
- Russia Provides Concept To Ensure Persian Gulf Security: Is Anybody Willing to Listen?
- UK Outlines Plan To Send EU-Led Naval Joint Task Force To ‘Ensure Safety’ In Persian Gulf
- Iranian Defense Minister Says His Country Powerful Enough To Counter Any Threat
- Gulf Conflict Report: Prospects Of War Between Iran And U.S.
Of course they won’t. The poodles can do that for themselves.
The US & UK adding enough warships to escort their numerous tankers in an already overcrowded narrow waterway that is overwhelmingly covered by Iranian security forces is exactly the act of stupidity that the thinking world anticipated … and the exceptionally-intellectually-challenged anglozionists did not disappoint …. the collective brains of a rocking horse.
Same old song and dance. Another Bush neocon, dredged up from the bottom of the swamp, perpetual member of ‘deep state’. Nothing new for this admin.
Probatly nothing new from You too.
Iran fx could stop making nukes. USA dont like it. China dont like it. Russia dont like it.
Hardly none in the whole world like more nukes and long distance missiles. I think many says : Why not, everybody else has, but most many of us could make nukes, if we really wanted it – But we dont.
Blaming Bush is far out. The conflict has continiued since Persians was something as well as 2 main versions of Islam arised. We do have several of those ancient conflicts all over the world.
It would help some more learned in school, they are not born as somewehere above the rest of us. That of course include mr Bush.
Iran is not making nukes, Russia is helping Iran w/ civil nuclear reactor construction, Every sovereign nation should have (needs) long range missile capability as an asymmetrical deterrent against against bellicose neighbors. We all be cool like Fonzie and nobody gets hurt.
And if the Israel moonlander had not chrashed, we all would eat green cheese from there now.
You are against anything they has told many times in writings as well as videos for many years.
Iran is not making nukes!!!! They dont enrich uranium to 98%, thus they dont.make nukes.
This has been proved and inspected.over and over and over.
Saying iran is making nukes, its like saying 17 years ago saddam has WMD.
Where are those WMD? They dont exist because it was a lie to mamufacture consent to invade.
The lie of Iran building nuclear weapons is the same project, to manufacture consent for an invasion.
Surely you ar old enough to remember 2002 Jens?
When US election come closer and closer then Trump says, Fuck UK and Fuck Israel, Make America great again until US election.
Esper’s Wiki shows a substantial history of Jew run think tank employment.
Accept and obey :)
Guess that is because they have not signed or ratified the ‘Law of the Sea Convention’, so would cause problems.
This guy is from Raytheon?
Guess who owns Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed, Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics?
Blackrock Vanguard and State Street.
Now guess who owns State Street?
Blackrock and Vanguard.
There are a few other cover companies like Bank of America and FMR LLC but the major shareholders are always Vanguard and Blackrock.
So if you want to put a face to all the killing and destruction that the USA inflicts on the world, you can’t do better than Larry the Fink.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Laurence_Douglas_Fink_%28cropped%29.jpg/220px-Laurence_Douglas_Fink_%28cropped%29.jpg
Are State Street, Vanguard and Blackrock large investment funds. So they do not directly own the shares?
US Military Industrial Complex is nominally private (has shares) but in all real aspects 100% dependent on State (that is, tax money) contracts awarded by the Armed Services Committee, most of whom receive bonuses from the MIC. Sooo… without the contracts from the State the share values would disappear and the industries mostly fold. So, it’s a racket.