The New York Times has reported that the president of the Japanese tanker company which was attacked recently has called the US claim that the ship was attacked with mines "false." The statement confirms the notion of a "false flag" attack which "conspiracy theorists" say is a device used by states to foment war. Iran denied any involvement.
Even more shockingly, the Israeli paper Haraatz recently ran an article which openly ponders how to draw the US into war without endangering Israel.
The New York Times said today:
"One of the tankers that were attacked in the Gulf of Oman was struck by a flying object, the ship’s Japanese operator said on Friday, expressing doubt that a mine had been attached to its hull."
CBS News said:
"Company president Yutaka Katada said Friday he believes the flying objects seen by the sailors could have been bullets. He denied any possibility of mines or torpedoes because the damage was above the ship's waterline. He called reports of a mine attack "false.""
Trump recently blamed Iranian mines by citing what he said is video evidence. Iran said it is part of a campaign to foster "Iranophobia." Trump has rejected Iran's denials.
CBS reported:
"The U.S. military's Central Command said the video it released shows Iran's Revolutionary Guard removing an unexploded limpet mine from one of the tankers, suggesting Tehran sought to remove evidence of its involvement from the scene. Iran denies being involved and accuses the U.S. of waging an "Iranophobic campaign" against it."
The Washington Post in an article entitled "Trump rejects Iran’s denials that it attacked tankers, citing video released by Central Command" wrote:
"the head of the Japanese shipping company that owns one of the targeted tankers challenged the U.S. assertion that the vessel was attacked with limpet mines. He said Friday that the crew reported it was hit by “a flying object.”"
The Israeli newspaper Haraatz on last May 20th ran an article entitled "Netanyahu's Iran Dilemma: Getting Trump to Act Without Putting Israel on the Front Line" frankly states:
"Even if Trump's instinct tells him it's best to avoid war with Iran, no one can be certain of his intentions - not even Netanyahu."
"Conspiracy theorists," as people who question government narratives or certain events are called, have long proclaimed that "false flag attacks" have long been a tool for states to blame one side for an attack while actually it was a different side committing it. The Gulf of Tonkin is one example in which history has vindicated skeptics. In that incident the US claimed a ship was attacked by North Vietnam, when it was not. Nevertheless the incident was used as a casus belli for the vast escalation of the Vietnam War, in which 58,000 US soldiers died. The unified country of Vietnam is now a major US trading partner, with major American sneaker companies operating in the former enemy's borders.
Conspiracy theorist go so far as to say that 9/11 was also a false flag attack, to draw the US into a major and presence in the Middle East, which began with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The overthrow of Saddam has been a major Israeli foreign policy objective for decades. In a 1982 issue of Kivunum an Israeli foreign office strategist wrote in an article "A Strategy for Israel for the 1980s":
"Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria...Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon...""
Oded Yinon
And in 1996, five years before 9/11, Bush administration defense department officials wrote in a policy paper intended for the eyes of Netanyahu that:
"Israel can shape its strategic environment...by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq..."
The paper was entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm."
The officials, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, were affiliated with the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, which openly advocated the overthrow of Saddam by force, long before 9/11. In one publication the group mentions the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" for some of its policies to be more quickly realized.