Subterranean Homesick News: US NATO War Agenda

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Saturday, August 19, 2017

Barcelona

Barcelona – The Hypocrisy of Sorrow

Global Research, August 19, 2017

Featured image: King Felipe VI of Spain (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Barcelona, 17 August, 5 PM – a white van plows with 70 km/h into a mass of pedestrians, many of them tourists, on the famous Las Ramblas, in the heart of Barcelona. The death toll, 13 plus more than 100 injured. In an adjacent event, the police kill one alleged perpetrator. The main suspect flees and is still at large. Or is he? – Maybe he has already been killed.

All the recent truck killings were carried out by white vans. Does it mean anything? Maybe not. But importantly ISIS has already claimed responsibility, through their news agency Amaq, so say the presstitute media. Does anybody other than the mainstream media check? – Probably not. Doesn’t matter. When ISIS claims responsibilities, it puts hearts and minds at ease. The culprit has been found. It’s always the bloody Islamists-jihadists. We can rest in peace. And life goes on.

Indeed, life must go on and being prepared for more and increasing terror attacks is what the Mayor of London and Mr. Macron, the novice French President, already predicted. They must know a thing or two we don’t. OK, let’s brace ourselves. Much else we can’t do anyway – or can we?

The French head of the conservative Republican Party, François Fillon, a losing contender of the recent Presidential elections, said with regards to the French tourists who died in the Barcelona attack: “We must assume our responsibility…” referring to the fact that he was not elected President – as he, Monsieur Fillon, would have done away with this Islamist terror. How low-low can you sink? There are no words, no comments.

***

Fortunately, the alleged chief perpetrator leaves, as usual and conveniently, an ID behind in the cabin of the white van. So, he can be traced to Melilla, a Spanish enclave in Morocco. In a related event, in a small town, Alcanar, some 250 km south of Barcelona, where on Wednesday night – well before the deadly Ramblas run, a massive explosion took place in a residence, leaving one person dead and 7 insured. One person was arrested by police. One of the injured persons was suspected to be the driver of the white Rambla van.

In the early morning hours of Friday, hours after the Barcelona van-ram in the beach town of Cambrils, some 120 km south of Barcelona, another van runs a police barricade, attempting to embark on a similar terror attack against a tourist-packed pedestrian strip. Apparently one pedestrian was killed. The police however, so the ‘news’, killed all five alleged terrorists in the van. The police now say they suspect one of them was the driver of the white van that rammed the Rambla. Dead men can’t talk.

Source: LondonlovesBusiness.com

All has – sadly but predictably – the putrefied smell of another false flag. And the ‘system’, the deep-deep dark state, again, gets away with it.

The mix of information, is seemingly incoherent and purposely very confusing. Connections must be fabricated. Let chaos reign. Keep people confused. Keep them in the belief that police are on top of it and on the guard. You people must not think. Indeed, shopping, according to RT is almost back to normal. There is a candle vigil going on in plain daylight – and a bit of a somber ambiance – and a crowd is holding an anti-islamisation rally in the center of Barcelona. All the while the Rambla is overflowing with tourists as usual. That’s the way it should be. Shopping is first. Put police in charge. They will protect us henceforth. In case they can’t handle it, the military are right at hand.

In the meantime – and foremost – and immediately after the horror massacre, messages of condolences poured in from such illustrious personalities, like Theresa May, Madame Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Sweden’s PM Stefan Löfven, from Belgium, Denmark…. Sorrow, no end.

Let’s not forget, in the last year the Ram-Truck-Terror, now a convenient tool of horror, fear and killing, has hit Nice, France – 14 July 2016, Promenade des Anglais, 86 killed, almost 500 injured; Berlin, 19 December 2016, Christmas Market, 12 people dead, 56 injured; England twice, 22 March 2017, Westminster Bridge, 5 dead, more than 50 injured; London Bridge, June 2017, 7 dead; Stockholm, 8 April 2017, the city’s busiest shopping street – 4 died, 15 injured. And now Barcelona Spain.

The condolences of these leaders sound hollow and so hypocritical because they, the very leaders, are at the heart of the problem. If not the direct instigators of this simply patterned string of terror attacks, they are utterly complicit, allowing the strings being pulled on their secret services by order of the Master Global Deep State, whose goal it is to subdue Europe, to convert her into a police – military state, chaos, possibly civil war. A civil war not as bad as to curtail essential consumption. But civil strife all the same. Give corporate finance enough room to escalate their debt and profit spiral, but leave the populace poor enough to produce a Europe that is devoid of thinking; no time to reflect, no time to protest – as people will struggle for their sheer survival.

You don’t believe it? Look at Greece and elsewhere, what’s going on around you. Militarization slow motion. Macron is fully committed to it – and doesn’t shy from saying so. The French have understood, and Macron’s popularity has sunk from 66% after the “election” to less than 35% today. Never mind. He is there to stay for 5 years. The French Constitution says so. A (people’s) miracle would have to happen to remove him.

On another occasion, I have mentioned the sophisticated hundreds of millions of euros worth ghost town being built in a German military camp in Saxony-Althaus – for the very purpose of training urban warfare – just in case, you and your fellow protesters, when you can’t take it anymore, you may take to the streets and go on the barricades – that’s when the urban trained forces of power come in to oppress you, even kill you, if necessary. What you saw in Hamburg at the G20 Meeting in early July was just a benign precursor of what’s to come.

Yes, that’s what’s expecting us Europeans – the US is already there, they are always a few notches ahead of us, they are doing the trial run for us. – Barcelona is just a little stone in the mosaic, in the Big Picture of “Full Spectrum Dominance” – the ultimate goal of the PNAC (Plan for a new American Century) – the Washington’s and the Deep-Dark One-Eyed State’s Bible, written and periodically updated by the ultimate One-Eyed Anglo-Zionists on top of the echelon. We are almost there.

Why now Spain? – Spain has been spared of major terror attacks since the 11-M (11 March 2004) attack, when a few explosions at Madrid’s Atocha train station killed 192 people and injured over 2000, three days ahead of Presidential elections. This had nothing to do with Jihadism. Though the terror was immediately blamed on Al Qaeda, no proof was ever found. It was the work of the right-wing government under PP (Partido Popular) in power at the time, blaming the Socialist Party (PSOE), hoping to defeat it. It backfired. The socialists won and stayed in power for two terms, a total of 8 years. But in the second term neoliberal might descended also on the socialists in Spain, as it did and does everywhere in Europe. The Socialists became and still are to this day, traitors to the people.

Today, Spain, with a smooth Parliamentary coup in 2016 that went almost unnoticed, has quietly slipped back to the neoliberal Rajoy Government. So, Spain is supposed to be safe for the system. It also followed the strict rules of the IMF, today reaching 100% debt to GDP, up from about 66% before the neoliberal manufactured crisis hit Europe and the western world in 2007 / 2008.

That’s exactly what the system wants. Spain is ready for another economic collapse, orchestrated in connivance with her leadership. Ready for another round of rent taking – more privatization, pension and base salary cuts – the usual. Again, look at Greece and you see the pattern. Wall Street’s appetite is never satisfied. It’s the fraudulent dollar (and euro) economy we are enslaved to that makes this human tragedy possible – and people don’t seem to even notice who and what is behind the planned misery.

Source: Nation Multimedia

Spain is on track for further ‘milking’. So, why more suffering now? – Spain is an important NATO country with three naval and military bases. The majority of the population hates NATO, would like to get rid of it. What better way of convincing the people that the forces of NATO are useful defenders against Islamist attacks. Yes, weak and with fear you accept (almost) anything. Actually, you call for your hangman to protect you – in fact, it’s the collective Stockholm syndrome.

Therefore, let’s not get sidetracked by the hollow and hypocritical words of sorrow of the chief vassal-leaders (sic) of our three most powerful European countries which are meant to lead the way for the people of the European Continent to become gradually but surely enslaved into mere hapless and powerless serfs, deprived of civil and human rights. We are well on the way there. Have you noticed?

It’s called Fascism with a smile. It’s a slow-moving soft but deadly fascism that fascinates you at every corner, pulling you deeper and deeper into the hole of no return. It’s the neoliberal fascism, that has abrogated and done away with every law, every regulation that may have protected you and your hard-earned savings and public assets; it conveyed everything to the market. Even your pensions and your saving. They are no longer yours. The market decides. Don’t believe it? – Just look at Greece. – “Hasn’t happen yet to me” – Well it will, I guarantee it, if you don’t take over your nation and make her again YOUR sovereign country. Act rather sooner than later. Time is running out.

Naturally, the situation will become unbearable to the point where you can’t take it anymore, and you will want to take to the street. It’ll be too late. Urban warfare will be ready against you.

Fascism with a smile has brought you to the point where there is no going back. It’s a new fascism. It’s not Hitler’s fascism. It’s soft, sophisticated and deadly, if you oppose it. You are manipulated by a blue-managed matrix, encircled by police and military, ready to fire – but you will be fine and get fed as long as you nod, as in agreement.

Barcelona, Nice, London, Berlin, Munich, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm – and whatever else is to come, are mere little pebbles in a growing mosaic. You better look ahead what the picture, the mosaic may look like when its finished – the Big Picture is nasty, very nasty.

Think about the message of sorrow Mr. Putin sent to King Felipe VI of Spain:

“We strongly condemn this brutal and cynical crime against civilians. What has happened once again emphasizes the need for the global community to join efforts to fight against the forces of terror.”

Mr. Putin has not mentioned Islam. He knows that he talks to western leaders who are in bed with terror, that getting them out of bed is a pipe dream. They are bought or threatened – with promises of heaven – to lead this system of terror all the way to a One World Order, or as India’s President Modi said so eloquently in a recent RT interview – until the world is eventually one happy family. Bingo.

But it is not the end. There are alternatives. The western world is like a sinking ship. It’s a slow sinking ship, slow and smiling as the fascism that drives it. We may not notice it. But look all around you, the massive killing, the fraud, the lawlessness at every step, up to the highest levels of government. Forget the msm presstitute, they are lying.

Most everybody knows this today. The next few centuries or more, are the Age of the East – Russia and China are opening the gates for an Economy of Peace, led by President Xi Jinping’s initiative, the enormous multi-pronged OBI – One Belt Initiative, formerly the OBOR – One Belt One Road; a new Silk road that stretches from Shanghai to Hamburg and from Vladivostok to Lisbon and connecting Syria and Iran in the South.

Be brave! Dare to detach. Detach from the lie and fraud we have been living for the last two millennia, all the way back to the Roman Empire and which may be reaching soon a peak, a fiery and bloody peak which may end life as we know it in a nuclear all-annihilating holocaust. Because the dying beast may not want to leave survivors on this planet of ours.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Posted with permission of the author.

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Libya – Why Was Muammar Gaddafi

Libya – Why Was Muammar Gaddafi Killed – May We Never Forget

Based on a Skype interview with Alex Knyazev, Russia TV24

By Peter Koenig and Russia-TV24

Global Research, May 18, 2017

Russia TV24

The Text below is the transcript of the interview between Alex Knyazev of Russia TV24 and Peter Koenig.

Questions Russia TV24: What were the reasons Mr. Gaddafi was killed and NATO invaded Libya?

PK: Mr. Muammar Gaddafi was certainly not killed for humanitarian reasons.

Mr. Gaddafi wanted to empower Africa. He had a plan to create a new African Union, based on a new African economic system. He had a plan to introduce the ‘Gold Dinar’ as backing for African currencies, so they could become free from the dollar dominated western monetary system, that kept and keeps usurping Africa; Africa’s vast natural resources, especially oil and minerals. As a first step, he offered this lucrative and very beneficial alternative to other Muslim African states, but leaving it open for any other African countries to join.

At the time of Gaddafi’s atrocious murdering by Hillary Clinton, then Obama’s Secretary of State, and the French President Sarkozy, driven by NATO forces, on 20 October 2011 – Libya’s gold reserves were estimated at close to 150 tons, and about the same amount of silver. The estimated value at that time was US$ 7billion.

It’s your guess who may have stolen this enormous treasure from the people of Libya. As of this date, it is nowhere to be found.

Gaddafi also wanted to detach his oil sales from the dollar, i.e. no longer trading hydrocarbons in US dollars, as was the US / OPEC imposed rule since the early 1970s. Other African and Middle Eastern oil and gas producers would have followed. In fact, Iran had already in 2007, a plan to introduce the Tehran Oil Bourse, where anyone could trade hydrocarbons in currencies other than the US dollar. That idea came to a sudden halt, when Bush (George W) started accusing Iran of planning to build a nuclear bomb which was, of course a fabricated lie, confirmed by the 16most prominent US security agencies- and later also by the UN body for nuclear safety – the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna. Washington needed a pretext to stop the Tehran Oil Bourse which would have decimated the need for dollars, and thereby most probably would have meant the end of the dollar hegemony.

Saddam Hussein had the same idea. He promised as soon as the murderous and criminal embargo imposed by the UN – of course dictated by Washington – would end in 2000, he would sell his petrol in euros. He was killed.

Gaddafi’s new plan for Africa would have meant an entirely new banking system for Africa, away from the now western (mainly France and UK) central banks dominated African currencies. -It could have meant the collapse of the US dollar -or at least an enormous blow to this fake dollar based western monetary system.

So, the Gold Dinar was not to happen. Anybody – to this day- who threatens the dollar hegemony will have to die. That means anybody other than China and Russia, because they have already a few years ago largely detached their economy from the dollar, by implementing hydrocarbons as well as other international contracts in gold or the respective local currencies. That alone has already helped reducing dollar holdings in international reserve coffers from almost 90% some 20 years ago to a rate fluctuating between 50% and 60% today.

The also Washington / CIA induced “Arab Spring” was to turn the entire Middle East into one huge chaos zone- which today of course, it is. And there are no plans to secure it and to return it to normalcy, to what it was before. To the contrary, chaos allows to divide and conquer – to Balkanize, as is the plan for Syria and Iraq. One of the Washington led western goals of this chaos of constant conflict is to eventually install a system of private central banks in the Middle Eastern / North African countries controlled by Washington – privately owned central banks, à la Federal Reserve (FED), where the neocons, the Rothschilds and freemasonry would call the shots. That is expected to help stabilize the US dollar hegemony, as the hydrocarbons produced in this region generate trillions of dollars in trading per year.

Gaddafi also wanted to introduce, or had already started introducing into Africa a wireless telephone system that would do away with the US / European monopolies, with the Alcatels and AT and T’s of this world, which dominate and usurp the African market without scruples.

Gaddafi was not only the leader of Libya, he had ambitions to free Africa from the nefarious fangs of the west. Despite being called a dictator and despot by the west – they do that to anyone who doesn’t submit to Washington’s rules – he was very much liked by Libyans, by his people. He had a more than 80% approvalrate by the Libyan people. Libya’s oil fortune has allowed him to create a social system in his country where everybody would benefit from their land’s riches – free health care, free education, including scholarships abroad, modern infrastructure, top-notch technology in medicine, and more.

Russia TV24: Why the gold dinar would be unacceptable for the western leaders? Or not?

PK: Yes, the gold Dinar was totally unacceptable for western leaders. It might have devastated the US dollar hegemony, as well as Europe’s control over the African economy – which is nothing less than neo-colonization of Africa – in many ways worse than what happened for the past 400 or 800 years of murderous military colonization and oppression -which is by the way still ongoing, just more discretely.

Look at the Ivory Coast 2010 presidential elections. Theirarguably ‘unelected’ President, Alassane Ouattara (picture on the right), was in a tie with the people’s candidate, Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo said he won the election and asked for a recount which was denied. Ouattara, a former IMF staff, was pushed in, basically by ‘recommendation’ of the IMF. He is the darling of the neoliberal international financial institutions – and is leading a neocon government – an economy at the service of western corporations. That’s what they wanted. That’s what they got. Modern colonization is well alive and thriving. I call this a financial coup, instigated by foreign financial institutions.

Mr. Laurent Gbagbo was accused of rape, murder and other atrocities and immediately transferred to the International Criminal Court (sic-sic) – what justice? – in The Hague, where he was waiting five years for a trial which started on 28 January 2016 and is ongoing. On 15 May 2017, it was extended at the Prosecutor’s request to collect further evidence. This by all likelihood is just a farce to dupe the public into believing that he is getting a fair trial. Already in hearings in 2014, Gbagbo was found guilty of all charges, including murder, rape and other crimes against humanity. Like Slobodan Milošević, he is an inconvenient prisoner, or worse would he be as a free man. So, he will most likely be locked away – and one day commit ‘suicide’ or die from a ‘heart attack’. The classic. That’s how the west does away with potential witnesses of their atrocious crimes. End of story. Nobody barks, because the ‘free world’has been made believe by the western presstitute media that these people are inhuman tyrants. That’s precisely what the western media’s headlines proclaimed about Muammar Gaddafi: Death of a Tyrant.

On the other hand, in 2015, Ouattara was “reelected by a landslide”. That’s what western media say. Colonization under African ‘leadership’. He is protected by the French army.
—

Back to Libya: Take the specific case of France and West and Central Africa. The French Central Bank, the Banque de France, backs the West and Central African Monetary Union’s currency, the CFA franc. The West African Central Bank, for example, is covered, i.e. controlled, by about 70% of the Banque de France. Banque de France has an almost total control over the economy of its former West African colonies. No wonder, Sarkozy, a murderer and war criminal – sorry, it must be said, backed Hillary’s – also a murderer and war criminal, push for NATO to destroy the country and kill thousands of Libyans, including Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Hillary’s infamous words: ‘We came we saw he died’. And that she said shamelessly, jokingly, laughing. Would the term human being still apply to such a monster?

Russia TV24: What countries are mostly interested in the Libyan recovery and why? What are the chances for the economy of Libya to be repaired?

PK: Well, if anybody should be interested in Libya’s recovery it would be first the Libyans who are still living in Libya, because they are now living in a Libya of chaos and high crime, of mafia-economics, of tyranny by gang leadership. They certainly have an interest to return to normalcy. North African neighboring countries should also be interested in restoring order and rebuilding Libya’s infrastructure and economy, stopping the spill-over of high crime and terrorism. They have lost an important trading partner.

Of course, the rest of Africa, who have suffered from continuous colonization of the west, after Gaddafi’s demise, should also be interested in reestablishing Libya. They know,it will never be the same Libya that was there to help their economy, to help them prying loose from the western boots and fangs of exploitation.

And Europe -should be most interested in reestablishing order and a real economy in Libya- cleaning it from a murderous Mafia that promotes drugs and slave trade ending up in Europe. Libya today is one of the key hubs for the boat refugees from Africa to Europe.Instead of helping Libyans to come to peace within its borders and to rebuild their country, the European Commission launched in 2015 a new European Border and Coast Guard Agency, targeting specifically Libya – destroying refugee boats, if they cannot stop them from leaving Tripoli, Benghazi and other Libyan Sea ports.

Of course, spineless Europe doesn’t dare saying they would like to remake Libya into a functional state.Libya is Washington’s territory – and Washington wants chaos to continue in Libya.As such Libya is a formidable ground for training and recruitment of terrorists, drug and slave trading; a country where crime prospers and the CIA takes their cut, as these criminal activities are directed by the CIA and their affiliates. The rest of the world doesn’t see that. For them it’s all the fault of the dictator Gaddafi, who thanks goodness was eliminated by the western powers, lords of money and greed.

Russia TV24: Decades ago Libya was very successful from an economic point of view. What main things could you remember?

PK: Libya was economically and socially a successful country, arguably the most successful of Africa. Prosperity from oil was largely shared by Gaddafi with his countrymen. Libya had a first-class social safety net, an excellent transportation infrastructure, free medical services, and modern hospitals,equipped with latest technology medical equipment, free education for everyone – and students could even receive scholarships to study abroad.

Under President Gaddafi, Libya built friendly relations based on solidarity with other African States and was always ready to help if a ‘brother nation’ was in trouble. Gaddafi was a bit like Hugo Chavez in South America. He had a large heart and charisma, maybe not so much for western leaders, but certainly for Libya’s own population. Yet, he is accused of tyranny by the West, and is said to having financially supported Sarkozy’s Presidential campaign – Sarkozy, the very ‘leader’ (sic-sic),who then helped Hillary lynch Gaddafi. If that doesn’t say a lot about Europe’s criminal leaders – what will?

Muammar Gaddafi was accused by Washington – an accusation immediately repeated by the spineless European puppets, of being responsible for the December 1988 PanAm Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. More than 240 people perished in the crash. Not a shred of evidence was discovered that Libya was behind the plot. But it was a good reason to start a program of sanctions against Gaddafi’s regime. It was most likely a false flag. What interest would anybody have to bring down that flight, other than clamping down on an oil-rich country.

Russia TV24: Now we see oil production has grown to at least 50% of the 2011 level. Can we expect it to continue growing and affecting the oil market?

PK: Yes, Libyan oil production has increased to about 50% of its 2011 level. Libya is known for her high premium light petrol, commanding premium prices. It is a market niche which might well be affected by Libya’s stepped up production. But who really benefits from this production increase? – Most likely not the Libyans, but the international corporations, mostly American and French oil giants. They call the shots on the production levels. They are part of the international cartel of oil price manipulators, as are the Wall Street banksters,predominantly Goldman Sachs.

Russia TV24: The sanctions against Libya are lifted and all barriers for foreign investments have disappeared as well. Does it mean the county will face recovery soon?

PK: Sanctions may be lifted, but that does not mean that foreign investments will now flow to Libya. The country is still under chaos and disarray – and in my opinion will stay so in the foreseeable future. That’s in Washington’s interest.Investors are reluctant to put their money into a crime nest and a terrorist breeding ground which is working closely with Washington and its secret services – to provide terrorists to fight US-proxy wars around the Middle East, for example in Syria and Iraq – and now even in Afghanistan – and who knows where else.

Russia TV24:How do you assess the political situation in the country today?

PK: As much as I would like to end on a positive note, it is difficult. As long as the CIA, chief instigator of all wars in the Middle East, is using the purposefully created Libyan chaos to train and recruit Islamic State fighters, Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups which vary only in name but have the same objective – namely regime change in Syria – prospects for a foreseeable bright future are dim.

Of course, a lot depends on the unpredictable Trump Presidency. Will he seek peace in the Middle East? – That would be the surprise of the Century – or will he continue on the track dictated by the Deep State (not least to save his skin) – continue destruction of the Middle East, Balkanization of Syria – all as a stepping stone to Full Spectrum Dominance – as is written in the American Bible – the PNAC – Plan for a New American Century – which outlines the ‘American Pax Romana’. They were the bloodiest 200 – 300 years of the Roman Empire. Here comes the positive note: It is unlikely that the American empire will last that long. It’s on its last legs.When it finally falters, Libya may recover, and so may the rest of the world.

The original source of this article is Russia TV24

Posted with permission of the author.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Turkey Invades Syria

Turkey Invades Syria to “Remove Bashar al-Assad”

By Adam Garrie

Global Research, November 30, 2016

The Duran 29 November 2016

President Erdogan of Turkey has issued a statement saying his troops have entered Syria with the intention of ousting President Assad.

Turkey has been illegally running soldiers, artillery and infantry in and out of Syria for much of the duration of the present conflict. Now, however, the proxy and shadow war, which Turkey has been waging against the Syrian Arab Republic, has just become official.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has just announced that Turkish troops have entered Syria with the intention of removing President Assad from power. It is a formal declaration of war.

If this threat is genuine, the person who could lose power might not be Assad but Erdogan himself. This summer’s poorly organised coup attempt in Turkey was brought about by deep divisions in Turkish society, divisions sowed by Erdogan’s extreme and often manic policies. Although Erdogan has retaliated severely against many of the coup leaders and supporters, his position is far from being as stable as he might dream that it is.

Erdogan’s announcement comes shortly after Russia and Turkey reconciled following a period of highly strained diplomatic relations as a result of Turkey downing a Russian jet over Syria in 2015.

Part of the reconciliation agreement made between Presidents Putin and Erdogan, stated that the two countries will cooperate over Syria. If Turkey aims to use her military to oust Assad, this agreement is as good as dead, and what’s more, by declaring war on the legitimate government of Syria, Turkey is by extrapolation, declaring war on Russia.

The flippancy with which Erdogan conducts foreign policy may well be his undoing. He is clearly fearful that when Donald Trump takes office, all of the major international players will be stacked against the mutual ambition of Turkey and the terrorists operating in Syria to remove Assad.

Erdogan is likely considering this as well as the fact that his attempt to gain a major foothold in northern Iraq isn’t going as planned. The western led coalition against ISIS in Mosul isn’t making the progress its leaders anticipated. Moreover, the Kurdish forces who Turkey has entered Iraq to eliminate, seem to be fighting rather better than Turkey and her US-European allies.

Equally crucial is the continued floundering of the so-called Free Syrian Army, a name generally assigned to the anti-government terrorists in Syria who are working most closely with Turkey. Since they seem incapable of doing Turkey’s bidding, Turkey may be looking to do the job themselves.

Not since America threatened to impose a no-fly zone over Syria, something which would have grounded Russian and Syrian planes, has the situation in Syria come so close a major fight between large powers.

There are, however, two areas from which hope can be derived. First of all, Erdogan is known for blustery, bellicose and threatening rhetoric, aimed more at his domestic supporters than an international audience. This could be one of those instances.

Secondly, members of the Russian government, perhaps even President Putin himself, must speak directly with Erdogan and explain the full consequences of his actions. It could bring Turkish troops into direct conflict with not only Russian and Syria armed forces but also with those of Iran and Hezbollah.

With the US all but conceding ground in the conflict, as the Syrian and Russian forces make staggering breakthroughs in Aleppo, Turkish forces could rapidly find themselves outnumbered by opponents as worthy as they are angry.

If things go badly for Turkey in Syria, it could lead to a far more organised coup against Erdogan, one that he might not see off. Erdogan has time and again proved to be something of a madman. His next move will determine whether or not he is also a stupid man.

The original source of this article is The Duran

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Thursday, November 24, 2016

Unbridled Global Capitalism: People Wake Up! Time is Running Out!

By Peter Koenig

Global Research, November 23, 2016

Washington has shown us again on 8 November that they offer only the choice between risking nuclear annihilation of humanity and total corporate privatization of our lives and our live services that we, the people, have created. The latter means impoverishment and enslavement to corporations for the majority of the population. It is a choice between the Satan and Lucifer.

Here are just a few examples of what the establishment gets away with and nobody protests.

The UN Human Rights Commission Expels Russia

On 28 October 2016, the UN kicked Russia out of the UN Human Rights Commission, but keeps Saudi Arabia and of course the US in the HRC – both of which are the largest, most audacious human rights abusers of our planet.

This is the first time in HRC’s history that a member of the Security Council was voted out. The reasons given by the western vassals was Russia’s involvement in Syria, “bombing hospitals and civilians, and supporting the atrocities of the Assad regime”, when exactly the contrary is true.

There is ample evidence that the US/NATO supported ISIS forces and the US / NATO / France / UK themselves are responsible for these deadly bombing raids on Aleppo, executed so that they can blame Russia. It is a ridiculous farce.

Image Saudi King Salman

By now the world knows that the US, NATO and Washington’s Gulf puppets are responsible for devastating the entire Middle East – but nobody objects. The empire – alias the Deep State behind the empire – calls the shots based on flagrant lies. The Deep State, some call it the Illuminati, others the ‘elusive super elite’, is a semi-secretive clan of a few obscenely rich and powerful Zionist-dominated families that since several hundred years have gradually taken over the world which today is at the verge of falling – or has already fallen – under the aegis of the New World Order (NWO).

Baron Nathan Rothschild said already around the year 1700,

“I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.”

These words are today as true as they were 320 years ago.

The President of the United States literally boasts about international capital crimes he commits and which nobody condemns – the extra-judiciary drone killings which he personally approves have killed at least 4,700 innocent people, according to official Washington statistics. The real number is at least triple or quadruple that amount. He is wiping out children, women, men, entire families, and nobody beeps.

All those bought western US puppet-UN members, who were compelled to vote against Russia, of course know the truth; they know in their innermost selves – which they are denying – that Russia is actually the only country seriously attempting to bring stability to the Middle East, that the real culprits for the three decades of bloodshed in the Middle East (including the first Gulf War, the Iran-Iraq war, the destabilization of Somalia, the destruction of South Sudan and the West Sudan Region of Darfur – and counting) are the United States and her corrupted vassals, the Saudis, Turkey, Qatar and other Gulf States that are at the mercy of the empire. By now they also know that the CIA created the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) from Saddam Hussein’s elite forces, that they were trained, funded and armed by the US, Israeli, NATO, French and British secret services. They all obey the orders of the Empire for FEAR, are afraid of sanctions, of bombs and invasions and regime change; they fear of being deprived of Washington’s favors. Fear is the weapon of cowards and against cowards.

The world just looks on, as Russia, one of the few defenders of peace, justice and stability in the Middle East, is expelled from the Human Rights Commission, while the United States is allowed to remain; the country currently involved in seven wars and counting – which has the record in extra-judiciary drone killings (this is a MUST read: “I don’t know how many people I have killed”, says a US drone pilot – and which is responsible for 10 to 12 million people killed in wars and conflicts directly initiated by Washington, or by proxies, in the last 15 years.

Crisis in Crimea

On 15 November 2016, a UN special committee approved a resolution condemning Russia’s “temporary occupation of Crimea and reaffirming the United Nations’ commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty over the Black Sea peninsula.” The resolution was approved by 73 to 23 with 76 abstentions. The resolution will most likely be adopted by the 193-member assembly. Most leaders of the world know the truth, but don’t protest against the lies, for fear – what else? – Another horrendous farce!

The US instigated in February 2014 the coup d’état in Ukraine – which prompted the Maidan massacre, actually directed from the US Embassy in Kiev, followed by an atrocious civil war, supported and nurtured by Washington, the European Union and NATO. The autonomous authorities of Crimea, of which more than three quarters of the population are Russians, decided they didn’t want to remain part of the newly western implanted Nazi regime in Kiev. They launched on 16 March 2014 a referendum to rejoin Russia. It was approved by over 95% of Crimean. The Duma (Parliament) of the Russian Federation accepted integrating Crimea into the Russian Federation. Crimea was not annexed, as the western propaganda apparatus likes its audience to believe. The Crimea peninsula was reintegrated at her own request.

In 1783, through an agreement with the Ottoman Empire, Russia took over Crimea. In 1942 Crimea was briefly occupied by Nazi Germany, but soon retaken by the Soviet Union. In 1954, President Nikita Khrushchev, who had Ukrainian roots, for no apparent reason, transferred Crimea to Ukraine. However, the Soviet Union and later Russia under a 1997 agreement between Ukraine and Russia continued to station part of its Black Sea fleet in Sebastopol, the Crimean Black Sea port. This agreement has since been extended until at least 2042. These legitimate Russian troops in Crimea are called by the presstitute MSM, ‘Russian occupation troops’; a complete lie.

The UN now wants to send a team of human rights inspectors to Crimea to report on Russian occupation and Russian human rights abuses. This is nothing more than a shabby show of propaganda, to make believe that human rights are being abused. For the western brainwashed public, its sufficient that the UN says it sends observers. The public doesn’t even care whether the observers are actually sent, or if they are, what the result is. The sheer fact that the UN is ‘suspicious’, is already an indication of Russian guilt. – Who is the UN anyway? – Lamentably it has become a mere instrument of the US and its western vassals to manipulate public opinion, to bully whoever doesn’t want to bend to the demands of Washington, and to facilitate provocations of conflicts and wars – and lend them legitimacy. There is no Russian occupation and there are no human rights abuses. It’s the typical Russia / Putin bashing propaganda.

Media Propaganda

Do not just accept what the mainstream media tells you! – Get the news from alternative media, on internet, if the national communication authorities prevent you from acceding alternative broadcasting stations, such as RT (Russia Today – English, French, Spanish, German), TeleSur (broadcast in Spanish and English), Chinese CCTV (broadcast in many, including European languages), PressTV, Iran (English, French, Spanish); and websites and journals, like Global Research (English and French), Information Clearing House (ICH), Voltaire Net (many languages), CounterPunch, NEO (New Eastern Outlook), KenFM (German); and many more. Be informed, before it is too late. Tomorrow maybe you are trying to flee from war zones, just to find out that there is nowhere to go. The planet is demolished into smoldering ashes from wars and conflicts everywhere – which We, the People, allowed to happen.

Unbridled Capitalism

In the neoliberal world, where unbridled capitalism reigns, syndicates throughout the west, report that the private sector in general and especially the construction industry (a key economic indicator) is massively firing long-term workers and employees, just to rehire them the next day as part-time workers, with none or drastically reduced social benefits. Corporations increase their profit margins and transfer more public and social capital from the people, the workers, to an ever-smaller elite. The pressure of massive unemployment, the result of western imposed austerity (FED, IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank – ECB), deprives the workers of their dignity and power to resist. They have to fight for their and their families’ sheer survival and are thus, vulnerable for exploitation and abuse. It is western colonization of their own people. No scruples, no moral, no conscience – and foremost, no solidarity. Ever increasing unemployment is what Marx called the capitalists’ cushion on which wages can be suppressed to a minimum for mere survival.

Cartoon David Simonds

‘If you are not happy with working for less, no problem, we’ll outsource your jobs to cheap labor countries. There are plenty’. So, the blackmail goes. And so, oppression is swallowed. And so, the caviar left is whining (and dining) over what can be done to soften the blow, but in no case will they cause any significant risk to the established order, lest they might be next in line for falling between the cracks.

And don’t be fooled, the decaying US infrastructure President-elect Trump wants to rebuild, will be rebuilt by the typical public-private partnership farce – the capital comes from the state – your taxes – and the private sector will take over its exploitation, i.e. you pay twice – first the capital, then the private operator’s profit in the form of fees he will levy on the reconstructed bridges, roads and railways. Another transfer from the poor to the rich.

People, wake up! There is no longer a ‘left’, since it has been decimated by the CIA led operation GLADIO (an elaborate series of false flags) of the 1960s and 1970s throughout Europe.

Left and right are long-gone concepts our conditioned minds still try to hang on to. They are old fixtures from our ‘democratic’ past, and now they have become part of our delusionary existence. They have long ago yielded to globalized neoliberalism that makes no distinction between left and right, but uses these defunct terms to confuse the public into believing that their vote still means what they believed it once did.

Just look at Greece – where the ‘leftist’ elite allows that their ‘socialist’ Syriza government ruins the lives of 90% of their citizens and compatriots. What they are doing is facilitating crime after crime after crime, as in successive ‘rescue packages’, i.e. debt, and steadily increasing and suffocating austerity. With a declining GDP – (yes, austerity does this to the economy) and an ever-increasing debt, now reaching close to 300% of GDP, it is obvious that Greece can never pay back its debt. Never. Most economists see eye to eye on this. Even the IMF does, if asked off the record, but they too are a mere tool of the Rothschild-led banking establishment, of the world’s Deep State – that has decided that Greece must go the path of no return, as a warning to others who may be intent to no longer bend to the master’s demands. And this is helped because the Greek elite is in connivance with them. They don’t want to leave the Eurozone, as their accumulated (and stolen) wealth is lodged in European banks. They know as well as internationally renowned economists do, that the only rescue for Greece and their compatriots in dire misery is to do a GREXIT, leaving the euro and leaving the EU.

On 16 September 2016, the Greek Parliament rush-approved a Brussels made legislation, written in English (not translated into Greek!), of 7,500 pages. The Parliament was unable to read it, for time and language; and even if they would have read it, they were obliged to sign off on it fast and without squabble. The legislation essentially transferred all public assets to the “European Stability Mechanism” (ESM), and this for 99 years, including infrastructure, sea and airports, public beaches, natural resources – you name it. The ESM, a supranational undemocratic entity will sell off these assets to private people or corporations, as they see fit. Greece has no saying. The ESM does not report to any elected parliament. With this 7,500-page legislation, the Greek Parliament also abrogated its own authority to pass any sovereign Greek fiscal legislation, transferring it quietly to Brussels and signing away Greek sovereignty. The last time a similar event happened was in 1933, when the German Reichstag (Parliament) transferred its legislative authority to Hitler.

How many Greek are aware of this? And nobody is screaming. This is equal to murder of a nation.

People wake up! – What’s happening to Greece can happen tomorrow to anyone of the European countries, starting with the southern Mediterranean nations.

It has already happened in a ‘softer form’, as a parliamentary coup to Spain. And nobody seems to have noticed.

Parliamentary coups coupled with election fraud appear to become the weapon of choice for ‘regime change’, or ‘regime continuation’ (Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Spain – to name just a few), as best suits the empire. Remarkably, shortly after Obama’s farewell visit to Berlin, where he had intense talks with Madame Merkel and named her the new leader of Europe, Angela Merkel declared on 21 November that she will run for a fourth term during the elections in the Fall of 2017. It will be interesting to see, what Obama promised her on how to ‘convince’ and trick a majority of Germans who are opposed to Mme. Merkel into voting for her anyway. Sputnik reports that two thirds of Germans, according to a YouGov poll, do no longer support her.

Return to national currencies.

There is nothing that can be done, short of abolishing the system altogether, short of accelerating the dismantling of the European (non-)Union, the fall of the Euro, disengagement from NATO – and finally, but most importantly, short of detaching from the fraudulent dollar based pyramid monetary system. For those who are afraid of what might happen when the euro bites the dust – no worries. First, European countries ahve happily (and better) lived without the euro and with their own currencies until only 15 years ago; and second, it may take only a few months to maximum a year for a country to prepare and revert to her own national currency.

A looming banking collapse.

After the election of Donald Trump and perhaps in response to his critique of Wall Street, the Federal Reserve (image right) has announced that it may increase the target range from 0.25%-0.50% to 0.50%-0.75%. This, after it was increased last December for the first time in nearly a decade.

With much of the banking sector – especially the TBTF (too-big-to-fail) banks overstretched and over-speculated to the brink, the slightest interest hike could trigger an avalanche that makes the 2008 crisis look like a walk in the park.

Don’t just swallow another manufactured crisis that transfers the money from your savings, your pension funds, your homes, to the elusive elite behind the banksters and corporations.

GMO Food: We are subject to food monopolies.

A handful of food corporations control more than two thirds of the food we consume.

Image: GMO chemicals

Be sure, they don’t work for your health, they work for their profit which means cutting costs on farming and production processes – and inserting GMOs everywhere. Genetically modified food can be engineered to reduce fertility (already happened as a Monsanto trial with poor farmer families in India in the 1990s), or to carry long-gestation germs of debilitating or deadly diseases, so that when years after ingestion they evolve into epidemies, they may be untraceable to GMOs.

Yet, they serve their purpose, helping massive population reduction, so that a small elite may maintain their lush lifestyle longer with the finite resources of Mother Earth. Population reduction is the key dictum of the Rockefeller-led Bilderberg Society. Henry Kissinger, a Bilderberger ‘scholar’, infamously said already in the seventies, “who controls the food, control the people”.

The machinery moves relentlessly forward on all fronts towards our civilization’s demise. And we don’t even notice it.

People wake up! Humanity’s Intrinsic Values

We need a change, as in redesigning our society according to humanity’s intrinsic values of justice and solidarity. May we follow the little spark of consciousness with which we were all born. It remains in all of our minds, despite the neo-fascist doctrine we are made to live day-in and day-out on an increasing intensity for the last 30-some years. If we do not wake up to this innermost call of conscience, we, as a society, may simply extinct ourselves. And like in times past, the wisdom of indigenous people may survive and carry our human genes forward for a new civilization to emerge – with a new conscience, perhaps increased by a tiny nudge – perhaps.

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media, TeleSUR, TruePublica, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Blogger's note: Posted with author's permission.

Monday, June 6, 2016

Obama Slams Door in Putin’s Face:

Says If Putin Doesn’t Want Russia’s Retaliatory Forces Eliminated, He’ll Need to Be the One to Press the Nuclear Button First

By Eric Zuesse

Global Research, June 06, 2016

The Saker

Actions speak louder than mere words, and U.S. President Barack Obama has now acted, not only spoken. His action is to refuse to discuss with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s biggest worry about recent changes in America’s nuclear strategy — particularly a stunning change that is terrifying Putin.

On Sunday June 5th, Reuters headlined “Russia Says U.S. Refuses Talks on Missile Defence System”, and reported that, “The United States has refused Russian offers to discuss Washington’s missile defence programme, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov was quoted as saying on Sunday, calling the initiative ‘very dangerous’.”

Russia’s concern is that, if the “Ballistic Missile Defense” or “Anti Ballistic Missile” system, that the United States is now just starting to install on and near Russia’s borders, works, then the United States will be able to launch a surprise nuclear attack against Russia, and this system, which has been in development for decades and is technically called the “Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System”, will annihilate the missiles that Russia launches in retaliation, which will then leave the Russian population with no retaliation at all, except for the nuclear contamination of the entire northern hemisphere, and global nuclear winter, the blowback from America’s onslaught against Russia, which blowback some strategists in the West say would be manageable probems for the U.S. and might be worth the cost of eliminating Russia.

That theory, of a winnable nuclear war (which in the U.S. seems to be replacing the prior theory, called “M.A.D.” for Mutually Assured Destruction) was first prominently put forth in 2006 in the prestigious U.S. journal Foreign Affairs, headlining “The Rise of Nuclear Primacy” and which advocated for a much bolder U.S. strategic policy against Russia, based upon what it argued was America’s technological superiority against Russia’s weaponry and a possibly limited time-window in which to take advantage of it before Russia catches up and the opportunity to do so is gone.

Paul Craig Roberts was the first reporter in the West to write in a supportive way about Russia’s concerns that Barack Obama might be a follower of that theory. One of Roberts’s early articles on this was issued on 17 June 2014 and headlined “Washington Is Beating The War Drums”, where he observed that “US war doctrine has been changed. US nuclear weapons are no longer restricted to a retaliatory force, but have been elevated to the role of preemptive nuclear attack.”

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has tried many times to raise this issue with President Obama, the most recent such instance being via a public statement of his concern, made on May 27th. Apparently, the public statement by Antonov on June 5th is following up on that latest Putin effort, by Antonov’s announcement there that Obama now explicitly refuses to discuss Putin’s concerns about the matter.

The fact that these efforts on the part of the Russian government are via public media instead of via private conversations (such as had been the means used during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the shoe was on the other foot and the U.S. President was concerned about the Soviet President’s installation of nuclear missiles 90 miles from the U.S. border) suggests that Mr. Obama, unlike U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1962, refuses to communicate with Russia, now that the U.S. is potentially in the position of the aggressor.

Russia is making its preparations, just in case it will (because of the Aegis Ashore system) need to be the first to attack. However, some knowledgeable people on the subject say that Russia will never strike first. Perhaps U.S. President Obama is proceeding on the basis of a similar assumption, and this is the reason why he is refusing to discuss the matter with his Russian counterpart. However, if Mr. Obama wishes to avoid a nuclear confrontation, then refusing even to discuss the opponent’s concerns would not be the way to go about doing that. Obama is therefore sending signals to the contrary — that he is preparing a nuclear attack against Russia — simply by his refusal to discuss the matter. In this case, his action of refusal is, itself, an answer to Putin’s question, like slamming the door in Putin’s face would be. It’s a behavioral answer, instead of a merely verbal one.

The geostrategist John Helmer discussed on May 30th the question of when the “Trigger Point” will likely be for Putin to decide whether there is no reasonable alternative but to launch — and for him then to launch — World War III.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

The original source of this article is The Saker

Friday, May 13, 2016

America Threatens Russia

America Threatens Russia: US-NATO Forces “Moving from a Training to a War Fighting Stance”

The USA: How To Make Them Give A Damn?

By Christopher Black

Global Research, May 13, 2016

New Eastern Outlook 12 May 2016

In a report published in the American journal, National Security News, on May 9th, the day of the celebration of the victory of Soviet and allied forces over the fascist forces in 1945, it was stated that, “in terms of the eastern threat-which is a reference to Russia-EUCOM (the American Forces European Command) will be moving from a training to a war fighting stance.”

The article continues, “this does not mean that the U.S. is planning a war with Russia, merely that it will shift its force structure in a manner aimed at deterring Moscow and defending NATO and European partners should Russian President Vladimir Putin attempt what he has done in Ukraine.”

Of course, the authors do not state what Russia “attempted in Ukraine,” because that phrase is a cover for the American arranged putsch that put in power the US puppet government in Kiev. That regime then attacked the peoples of the eastern Ukraine because they refused to accept the American backed coup against their democratically elected president and the crushing of their culture. And when Americans say that they “are not planning a war”, we know that is exactly what they are planning. What are the wars in Ukraine, in Syria, the destruction of Yugoslavia and Libya, but a part of the war against Russia?

The article then refers to the “deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Russia, and Moscow’s continuing “aggressive, belligerent actions against U.S. warships and aircraft in international spaces.” This, again, is code meaning that “Russia will not let us walk all over them in the Baltic, Ukraine, Syria or anywhere else.”

It confirms that preparations for war continue steadily, as I have related in previous articles, comparing the NATO build up of forces in the east of Europe to the build of German forces prior to the launching of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazis’ surprise attack on the Soviet Union, on June 21, 1941. The similarities mount with each passing month. The Russian government, well aware of what is happening, has responded with close surveillance of American combat ships entering the Baltic which threaten Kaliningrad, St. Petersburg and Russian access to the Atlantic. It has also created three new army divisions; two of which are to be placed on the western front facing NATO forces in Eastern Europe and one on the southern flank.

Just recently, the Americans transferred their top general in Korea, General Scaparotti to the command of American forces in Europe, replacing the bellicose General Breedlove. The change is more than routine or cosmetic since Breedlove was an air force officer. Scaparotti, even more bellicose than Breedlove, is an army combat general with experience in several US attacks on sovereign nations

His replacement in Korea, General Brooks.is also an army combat general who was deputy head of army operations in the attack on Iraq, and also has a record of being involved in American aggression against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and the “war on terror” in the middle east, meaning the war on Iraq and Syria. Both these men are fighting generals, not office chair warmers. Their appointments suggest increased aggressive actions by the Americans on the Korean peninsular and on Russia’s borders. In fact on May 4th, the day he assumed command of the NATO forces in Europe, General Scaparotti stated that, “NATO needs to stay agile and ready to fight tonight.” Alarming words.

In an attempt to counter the continued American pressure, President Putin, on Monday, May 9th called for the creation of a non-aligned system of international security to counter “global terror.” What he meant by that is unclear, non-aligned in what sense? What would a non-aligned system look like?

We must not forget that a Non-Aligned Movement still exists. Formed in 1961 in Beograd by India’s Prime Minister Nehru, Indonesia’s President Sukarno, Egypt’s President Nasser, Ghana’s President Nkrumah and Yugoslav President Tito, it advocated a road between the opposing forces in the so called Cold War. Fidel Castro said in a speech in 1979, that the Non-Aligned Movement wants to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, ne-colonialism and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference ort hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics.” These objectives were, it should be noted, completely in line with Soviet policy but totally opposed to everything American imperialism was trying to achieve, domination of the world.

The Russian government has repeatedly stated it supports the objectives expressed in Castro’s speech. The United States has repeatedly stated and proved that it will not tolerate them. Therefore, it would seem that reviving the Non-Aligned Movement, which lost its direction with the end of the Cold War, could be an important step in creating what President Putin has in mind, a non-aligned movement with military power. The Non-Aligned Movement has currently 120 nations. Are they prepared to join Russia to build a common security architecture? Is that what President Putin has in mind? Interesting questions, interesting possibilities. But do the leaders of those nations or any of them, have the desire, the will and the courage to do something before a catastrophe occurs?

Whether President Putin is talking about establishing a common security initiative with those countries, or just the BRIC nations, without a common ideology it is difficult to see how those countries can come together. But then, perhaps, today a common ideology is not necessary, only a common fear. We shall see. President Putin is highly intelligent and perhaps has some concrete ideas in mind to push this forward. We can but hope. For he also knows, as we all know, that when he says in his May 9th speech that “terrorism has become a global threat” he is really stating that the United States has become a global threat.

It is clear that the “terrorists” the world is facing are U.S. proxy forces attempting to destabilise the word for American interests. The battle against “terrorists” in Aleppo is really a battle against U.S. forces in Syria. No one is any longer fooled by the vague term “terrorists.” This has been made abundantly clear by the invasion of Syria by U.S. forces in the past few weeks, setting up advance bases for something bigger. President Putin actually said it in his speech when he said, “double standards and short-sighted indulgence to those who are nurturing new criminal plans, are unacceptable.” The reference could only be to the NATO alliance and the Unites States in particular.

The call for the creation of a “non-aligned security system” can also be interpreted as recognising the total irrelevance of the United Nation’s and its role in international law of securing world peace. Its irrelevance has increased year by year along, with that of international law; the United States and its allies treat both with contempt.

We can expect only worse after the American elections. The two likely contenders for the American presidency are equally intent on “making America great again,” of dominating the world. Since they, on behalf of the ruling elite, offer no rational solutions to the American people for the increasing economic decline and social breakdown that is occurring in the United States, war is their only way out.

It’s time for a new Bandung Conference, the conference that was the precursor to the Non-Aligned Movement, held in 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, a conference of African and Asian states, hosted by President Sukarno. The member nations adopted a “declaration on promotion of world peace and cooperation which included Nehru’s five principles: mutual respect to each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference in domestic affairs, equality and mutual benefit, peaceful co-existence. These principles need to be renewed and in light of the reality, made concrete by a common system of international security as President Putin suggests.

For as Harold Pinter, the Nobel Laureate for Literature in his acceptance speech of the Nobel Prize said, “The United States quite simply doesn’t give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant.” “How to make them “give a damn,” he once asked me, “before they kill us all?” How indeed? That is the question.

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto, he is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada and he is known for a number of high-profile cases involving human rights and war crimes, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

The original source of this article is New Eastern Outlook

Monday, April 11, 2016

Hybrid Wars and “Color Revolutions” in the Central Asian

Hybrid Wars and “Color Revolutions” in the Central Asian Heartland: Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

Part 3

By Andrew Korybko

Global Research, April 11, 2016

Oriental Review 8 April 2016

Please read Parts 1 and 2

Turkmenistan:

The threat facing Turkmenistan is less of a Color Revolution than an Unconventional War. The catalyst for this conflict would be a terrorist invasion coming from Afghanistan that unexpectedly sweeps northwards along the Murgab River. Such an offensive doesn’t even have to reach the national capital in order to be successful, since all that it really needs to do is capture the city of Mary, the capital of the resource-rich Mary Region. This part of the country contains the lion’s share of Turkmenistan’s gas reserve, which includes the massive and decades-long functioning Dauletabad Field and the newly discovered Galkynysh Field, the latter being the world’s second-largest find.

It wouldn’t be all that difficult for terrorists to take over this plot of land either, since the Murgab River is scattered with tiny villages along its banks that could provide cover from government airstrikes and places to provoke pitched battles from. The fertile land nearby is endowed with agricultural potential that’s surely being stored somewhere closely accessible, and this could help feed the occupying forces until greater conquests are made. In short, the Murgab River is the most militarily and logistically sustainable route for an ISIL-like invasion of Turkmenistan, and it leads straight to the gas heart of Eurasia that’s critically connected to China and will possibly be linked to India in the coming decade as well.

The risk of terrorists gaining control of the largest source of China’s gas imports and possibly even destroying the facilities is too much for multipolar strategists in Beijing and Moscow to bear, and it’s assured that they’ve already engaged in some sort of unofficial contingency planning with their counterparts in Ashgabat. An anti-terrorist Chinese intervention is largely precluded due to geographic distances and a lack of support and logistics facilities en route, but the Russian military has no such hindrances and would be much more likely to assist the Turkmen authorities if called upon to do so. This is of course a last resort and would only be commissioned if Turkmenistan proves itself unable to stem the terrorist tide and defend its gas infrastructure, but such an event is most assuredly being planned for just in case the Turkmen-Afghan border proves to be just as fragile of a defense against terrorists as the Syrian-Iraqi one was before it.

Kazakhstan:

Kazakhstan and the other three remaining states of former Soviet Central Asia are greatly at risk of a “Central Asian Spring” breaking out in the Fergana Valley, and Part IV of the Greater Heartland series will focus exclusively on this ever likely scenario. Accordingly, the rest of this section will explore the other Hybrid War vulnerabilities facing these four countries.

The geographically largest state in the Greater Heartland region is surprisingly immune from many of the conventional socio-political factors that lead to Hybrid Wars (excluding the variables that will later be discussed about the “Central Asian Spring”). If one was blind to the domestic and international contexts pertinent to Kazakhstan, then they’d be inclined to believe that the Russian population constitutes the greatest threat to the country’s sovereignty, although this couldn’t be anywhere further from the truth. Theoretically speaking, this demographic satisfies all of the criteria necessary for sparking a Hybrid War, but Kazakhstan’s multipolar alignment with the Eurasian Union and respectful treatment of this influential minority group precludes any chances that they or Russia would ever try to move forward with this scenario. On the reverse, the very inclusion of such a large Russian minority within Kazakhstan ties Astana and Moscow closer together than just about any other state in the former Soviet Union and works to enhance, not deteriorate, relations between them.

The only vulnerability in this relatively secure setup is if the US and its proxy NGO affiliates succeed in brainwashing the Russian-Kazakh population with Pravy Sektor- and Navalny-esque extreme nationalism, which could then create a delicate geopolitical situation where the raucous Russian minority agitates against Astana and attempts to drive a wedge between Kazakhstan and Russia. Security officials in both states are likely well aware of this obvious scenario and can be predicted to have rehearsed coordinated contingency measures for responding to it. Nonetheless, if such a virulent, discriminatory, and destructive ideology as “Greater Russian Nationalism” is allowed to fester in multicultural Kazakhstan and parts of the Russian Federation itself, then a scandalous outbreak in the Near Abroad could provoke a simultaneous cross-border event inside of Russia, especially if ‘sleeper sympathizers’ organize anti-government protests against Moscow’s “betrayal” of its compatriots out of its refusal to replicate the Crimean scenario in Northern Kazakhstan.

Debris is scattered in front of the headquarters of the OzenMunayGaz energy company in Zhanaozen, Dec 2011.

Another destabilization possibility that mustn’t be discounted in Kazakhstan is a repeat of the Zhanaozen riots, the ‘localized’ Color Revolution attempt that was sparked by a simmering labor dispute in 2011. The oil field workers were fed up with what they complained to be poor working conditions, low wages, and unpaid salaries, and this created an attractive atmosphere for Color Revolutionaries to exploit. Keeping with Color Revolution tradition, the riots started on 16 December, the 20^th anniversary of Kazakh independence, and were presumably expected to signal the beginning of the regime change attempt to other cells across the country, almost one year to the day that the “Arab Spring” Color Revolution first broke out in Tunisia.

Seething with preexisting anger, the workers were extraordinarily easy to exploit, and the carnage they committed killed over a dozen people and injured more than 100 before a state of emergency and necessary military intervention restored order. The authorities’ decisive reaction and the multicultural, patriotic identity of most Kazakhs can be credited with preventing the spread of the Color Revolution virus from the distant Turkmen border all the way to centrally located capital, but the strategic lessons that can be learned from this episode are that: labor disputes and organizing could be both a cover and spark for a Color Revolution; and that destabilizations could start outside of the major cities and originate in the far-flung provinces.

Kyrgyzstan:

This tiny mountainous republic is notably split along a steep North-South divide, with the capital of Bishkek being located along the northern plains while the major population centers of Jalal-abad and Osh reside in the southern Fergana Valley. The clan-based nature of Kyrgyz society has played a strong role in influencing the political system, and this has consequently created identity resentment among whichever group was disproportionately underrepresented at the given moment. Although the situation has relatively stabilized and become somewhat more ‘equitable’ since the 2010 Color Revolution, clan-based tension and its geographic affiliations are still deeply ingrained in the national psyche, and any visible calmness simply belies the aggravating tensions that lay just beneath the surface. As confirmation of this assessment, one need only remember the misleading “stability” that many had inaccurately judged to be prevalent in the country just prior to the 2005 and 2010 Color Revolutions, and after witnessing the ferocious clan-based and ethnic violence that exploded after each of them, it’s improbable to assume that the individual drivers of such identity conflicts simply disappeared on their own after only half a decade.

What really happened is that they went underground as usual and abstained from the national discourse, while still remaining psychologically mobilized and ready to act the moment a future destabilization distracts or dissolves the security forces and provides another strategic opening for settling unresolved blood feuds that still linger from last time. The most violent-prone area of Kyrgyzstan is its southern Fergana region that abuts Uzbekistan, and it’s here where radical Islamic elements have taken root. The difficulty in forcibly eradicating them is that any major Kyrgyz security operation so close to the Uzbek border, let alone one that potentially targets ethnic Uzbeks, could create a hostile impression towards much-stronger Uzbekistan, which in turn could use the events as a pretext for activing a prearranged plan to mobilize in response to the ‘human rights violations’ allegedly being committed against its ethnic compatriots. Tashkent’s geopolitical loyalty has always been nebulous and ill-defined, and the country’s been working more closely with the US ever since the 2014 drawdown in Afghanistan. Washington needs a Lead From Behind partner in Central Asia, and it’s possible that Uzbekistan has been designated this role, which if it doesn’t comply with, could lead to the “Central Asian Spring” scenario that will soon be discussed.

To return to the Hybrid War threats facing Kyrgyzstan, it’s important to highlight that the country’s mountainous terrain is very accommodating to guerrilla warfare. The southern mountain ranges are sparsely populated and the government barely has any presence in some of the more isolated areas. Looking at the regional geography at play, it’s conceivable that Fergana-based terrorists could receive weapons and fightersfrom Afghanistan by taking advantage of the lack of governance present in Southern Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. After all, this route is already used to smuggle tons of drugs, so it’s certainly possible that it could be used to transport terrorists and weapons along the way as well (if this isn’t being done already). It’s very difficult for the Kyrgyz authorities to exert full control over this region because of tight financial and human resources, a current prioritization on the more populated areas, and the inhibitive geography involved.

To emphasize the last point, wintertime typically renders all of the few north-south roads impassable and strands the mountainous southern-based citizens in their villages for the duration of the season. This effectively splits the country into two, and if timed to coincide with a Hybrid War, then it could give the regime change insurgents active in that region enough time to consolidate their gains and prepare for the hostilities that would inevitably recommence after the snow melts in spring. When one thinks of a terrorist-driven “caliphate”, the last thing that probably comes to mind is a mountainous, snow-covered retreat, but this is exactly what ISIL or any likeminded group could feasibly create in Southern Kyrgyzstan if they played their cards ‘right’. It would be extremely challenging to dislodge the terrorists in such a scenario, and the danger in doing so would critically spike if it were revealed that they had access to anti-aircraft weapons. The Kyrgyz military would obviously be unsuited for such a difficult task and would have to resort to their Russian partners in the CSTO for assistance, with Moscow predictably helping through a combination of drone surveillance and air strikes just as it’s currently doing in Syria at the moment.

Tajikistan:

The threat facing Tajikistan is structurally similar to the one in Kyrgyzstan, and it’s that the country’s large swath of mountainous geography could be exploited by terrorist groups in facilitating smuggling routes or providing cavernous shelter. It goes without saying that Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan is perhaps its greatest vulnerability, but some respite could be found in the fact that there are more ethnic Tajiks in Afghanistan than in Tajikistan, and that if this community were properly mobilized to its fullest extent, then it could provide an effective bulwark against the Taliban and other terrorist groups. At the moment, however, this doesn’t seem to be the case, since the Taliban was able to briefly capture the northern provincial capital of Kunduz at the end of September and achieve their greatest military success since 2001.

Tajik border guards

Up to this point, it had been largely assumed that this part of Afghanistan was the least welcoming to the Taliban owing to the valiant history of the Northern Alliance and the relatively secular Tajik community that inhabits the region. What Kunduz taught observers is that these two factors are no longer the strongest determinants of regional security, and that the Taliban has succeeded in the past decade and a half in proselytizing their ideology, gaining sympathizers, and infiltrating enough fighters into the area so as to set up an effective base of operations. The converts that they’ve claimed, the supporters that they’ve acquired, and the terrorists that they’ve relocated to Northern Afghanistan all played an integral role in the Taliban’s capture of Kunduz, and just because they had to conventionally retreat from the city doesn’t mean that they’re soft infrastructure had to withdraw as well. The reason that this is relevant to Tajikistan is that it proves that the Taliban have a strong presence right along the Amu Darya river border and that fears about their cross-border militant potential are not misplaced.

More domestically, however, the greatest threat comes from the Islamic Renaissance Party, the newly banned organization that represented the last legal party of political Islam in the region. The process was in the works for a while, but ultimately it was decided that the group was full of terrorists and needed to be shut down as soon as possible, with the decision being spurred by rogue former Deputy Defense Minister Abdukhalim Nazarzoda’s coup attempt earlier that mouth. He and a group of followers slaughtered over 30 soldiers in the capital of Dushanbe before fleeing into the mountains where they were finally hunted down and killed a week later. The subsequent investigation revealed that the deputy head of the Islamic Renaissance Party, Mahmadali Hayit, had consorted with the coup plotters earlier in the year and that 13 members of the party were suspected of being involved in the attacks, so it makes absolute sense that the organization would be outlawed soon thereafter in the interests of national security. At the same time, however, the proclamation came so abruptly that the authorities didn’t have time to completely extinguish the organization, and countless sympathizers and probable sleeper cells can be assumed to be embedded in society. Whether they’ll make the transition to militant action on behalf of the terrorist organization or repent for their prior allegiance to it and disown its ideology remain to be seen, but the actionable threat remains nonetheless and is obviously a destabilizing factor that could be leveraged in any coming Hybrid War against Tajikistan.

Uzbekistan:

Aside from the “Central Asian Spring” scenario that will be detailed in Part IV, there are still quite a few other Hybrid War threats facing the region’s largest country. Uzbekistan is first and foremost threatened by a complete breakdown in law and order stemming from a successionist crisis after the passing of Islam Karimov. The author previously explored the contours of these chilling possibilities in his piece “Uzbekistan’s Bubbling Pot Of Destabilization”, but to concisely summarize, the clan-based nature of Uzbek society coupled with the competition between the National Security Service and the Interior Ministry creates a cataclysmic scenario where a black hole of disorder arises in the heart of Central Asia and rapidly spreads throughout the rest of the region.

The only thing that could stop the previously held-together society from dramatically decentralizing down to Somalian-style warlordship would be the rapid reconsolidation of power under one of the two competing security agencies, but since their rivalry could predictably intensify in the days following Karimov’s death (and with the resultant security breakdown this would entail if they focus more on one another than on their designated subjects), it can’t be precluded that Uzbekistan could unravel before anyone realizes what even happened. Of course, if Karimov publicly designates a successor prior to his death or steps down and allows his designee to rule before then, this could potentially assuage the risks inherent in this scenario, but it doesn’t look too likely that this would happen, nor would these steps prevent the rival agency from attempting a major power play the moment the ‘head honcho’ inevitably dies anyhow.

Parallel with this possible tumult could be an explosion of terrorism from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Hizb ut Tahrir, ISIL, the Taliban, some yet-to-be-named organization, and/or a combination of these groups, which would exacerbate the already deteriorating security situation in the country and divide the security services’ focus even more. There’s also the likelihood that the Taliban or ISIL might even make a conventional move on Uzbekistan amidst the greater breakdown of regional order, which in that case would usher in a global crisis similar to the one that transpired when ISIL crossed into and began conquering Iraq.

Therefore, true to the theory of Hybrid War, any type of social disruption in the tightly controlled Uzbek society, be it through a Color Revolution, successionist crisis, or a combination of factors, would create a tantalizing opportunity for Unconventional Warriors to rise up against the state and increase the odds of regime change. In this case, if there’s no real government in power at the moment, then it would prolong the “regime vacuum” and amplify country’s disorder until it reaches the critical point of spreading to its neighbors. Therefore, in such a scenario as the one previously described, it’s important for some leader or leading entity (e.g. military junta) to assume power as soon as possible in order to preempt a regional breakdown. In hindsight, it was precisely this quick emergence of leadership, however weak and fragmented, that emerged in Kyrgyzstan after the 2010 Color Revolution that helped to miraculously contain the chaos and prevent it from turning into a “Central Asian Spring”.

Before addressing this curious concept that’s been alluded to a few times already, it’s necessary to briefly touch upon a minor socio-political factor in Uzbekistan that shouldn’t be overlooked when discussing forthcoming disorder there. The autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan is a little-known administrative entity in the former Soviet Union that handsomely sits atop rich oil and gas reserves and provides transit to two energy pipelines to Russia. The dried-up majority of the Aral Sea has endowed the region even more oil and gas than was previously accessible, meaning that Karakalpakstan will likely become more important than ever to the Uzbek state.

Still, its energy potential isn’t the exact reason why the autonomous republic is brought up when discussing Hybrid War scenarios, since there lately have been whispers of a Karakalpakstan “independence” movement that provocatively wants to join Russia. In all probability, this isn’t a genuine movement but rather a proxy front controlled by the US to advance the objective of straining the already frayed ties between Russia and Uzbekistan. The appearance of a “pro-Russian” separatist organization at the crossroads of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan isn’t incidental, and its’ designed to destabilize the entire region if ever given the opportunity. On its own, the Karakalpakstan “independence” movement is powerless to do anything to upset the Central Asian balance, but in the event that the eastern more populated part of the country descends into bedlam following one or some of the above-mentioned scenarios, then it’s likely that this group will emerge from the shadows (or more likely, be parachuted or infiltrated into the theater) to violently lay stake to its secessionist claim so that it can then transform into an American protectorate.

To be continued…

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency. He is the post-graduate of the MGIMO University and author of the monograph “Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach To Regime Change” (2015). This text will be included in his forthcoming book on the theory of Hybrid Warfare.

The original source of this article is Oriental Review

http://subterrnews.blogspot.com/2016/04/hybrid-wars-and-color-revolutions-in.html

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