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The Skripal Affair – Another False Flag in NATO Litany to Criminalize Russia

September 20, 2018

The Skripal Affair – Another False Flag in NATO Litany to Criminalize Russia

If we start from a premise which understands that Britain and its NATO allies are capable of mounting false flag events in Syria with chemical weapons, then it is entirely possible that British secret services carried out a similar propaganda stunt in England with regard to former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal.

We also need to bear in mind that British state intelligence agencies are plausibly running a covert assassination program targeting Russian exiles living in Britain – for the purpose of incriminating Moscow.

Over the past two decades, more than a dozen Russian dissidents have met untimely deaths while residing in England, including Alexander Litvinenko and Boris Berezovsky. Their deaths provide propaganda fodder for the British to accuse Moscow of carrying out “revenge killings”.

However, the suspicious circumstances surrounding each death could more conceivably point to the British liquidating the Russian exiles as propaganda assets.

In the case of Sergei Skripal, the disgraced former Russian military intelligence officer was convicted in Russia of being a spy working for Britain’s MI6. He was exiled to England more than a decade ago as part of an espionage swap deal.

When Skripal was apparently poisoned in his resident town of Salisbury in southwest England on March 4, along with his adult daughter, Yulia, the British authorities immediately pointed the finger of blame at Russian President Vladimir Putin for allegedly ordering an assassination. The Kremlin was accused of dispatching agents who supposedly poisoned the Skripals with a deadly nerve agent.

The publication last week by Scotland Yard police of CCTV images showing two Russian men, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, walking the streets of Salisbury on the weekend of the alleged attack was reported in the British media as “proof” of the supposed Kremlin assassination plot. The Skripal affair is conveniently portrayed as “one more” example of Putin’s “Kremlin killing machine”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Decoding Putin’s Response to Attack in Syria

September 19, 2018 / 1 Comment on Decoding Putin’s Response to Attack in Syria

Decoding Putin’s Response to Attack in Syria

The fog of war and geopolitics makes initial responses to the attack on Russian and Syrian forces recently difficult to assess.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response seemed timid and was at odds with statements from his Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and more recent statements from Russia’s Foreign Ministry.

Putin backed off on explicitly blaming Israel for the downing of the IL-20 ELINT aircraft which killed 15 Russian servicemen, but made it clear he holds them responsible for the attack as a whole.

My thoughts on what the goals of the attack were are the focus of my latest article at Strategic Culture Foundation.

It was obvious to me that this attack was designed as a provocation to start World War III in Syria and blame the Russians for attacking a NATO member without proper cause, since the Syrian air defense forces were the ones responsible for shooting down the plane.

Lying us into war is a time-honored American political tradition, whether we’re talking Fort Sumter, Pearl Harbor or the Gulf of Tonkin. All of these incidents were avoidable by Presidents intent on getting into a conflict while simultaneously playing the victim card by getting the other side to shoot first.

I’m sorry if that is a controversial statement but the historical record on them is very, very clear.

From Strategic Culture:

The setup is pretty clear. Israel and France coordinated an attack on multiple targets within Syria without US involvement but with absolute US knowledge of the operation to provoke Russia into going off half-cocked by attacking the inconsequential French frigate which assisted Israel’s air attack.

Any denunciation of sinister intent by Israeli Defense Forces is hollow because if they had not intended to provoke a wider conflict they would have given Russia more than one minute to clear their planes from the area.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Alliance Emerges in Eastern Mediterranean to Reshape Regional Security Landscape

September 9, 2018

New Alliance Emerges in Eastern Mediterranean to Reshape Regional Security Landscape

The military-political landscape in Europe and the Mediterranean is changing. NATO is not as unified as it once was, and Turkey’s membership has become more of a formality than a real thing. A pro-US group consisting of Great Britain, Poland, and the Baltic States has emerged as part of a North Atlantic Alliance that is divided by differences and the open rift over the 2% financial contribution, a decree that is largely ignored, along with the other divisions that are weakening the bloc. O ther groups are arising that also have common security interests. A new pact, an Arab NATO allied with the United States, will soon materialize in the Middle East. Changes are coming, but they are hard to predict as everything is currently in a state of flux.

“The United States is interested in increasing its use of military bases and ports in Greece,” said General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), on Sept. 4 during his visit to Athens. “If you look at geography, and you look at current operations in Libya, and you look at current operations in Syria, you look at potential other operations in the eastern Mediterranean, the geography of Greece and the opportunities here are pretty significant,” he added. According to the Military Times, “[N]o specific bases have been identified, but that Supreme Allied Commander Europe Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti is evaluating several options for increased US flight training, port calls to do forward-based ship repairs and additional multilateral exercises.” US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross came to Greece right after the CJCS’s visit to take part in the annual Thessaloniki International Trade Fair.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Provocations Have A History Of Escalating Into War

September 1, 2018

Provocations Have A History Of Escalating Into War

The Russian Government and President Putin are coming under pressure not from US sanctions, which are very good for Russia as they force Russia into independence, but from Russian patriots who are tiring of Putin’s non-confrontational responses to Washington’s never-ending insults and military provocations. Russian patriots don’t want war, but they do want their country’s honor defended, and they believe Putin is failing in this job. Some of them are saying that Putin himself is a West-worshipping Atlanticist Integrationist.

This disillusinonment with Putin, together with Putin’s endorsement of raising the retirement age for pensions, a trap set for him by Russia’s neoliberal economists, have hurt Putin’s approval ratings at the precise time that he will again be tested by Washington in Syria.

In many columns I have defended Putin from the charge that he is not sufficiently Russian. Putin wants to avoid war, because he knows it would be nuclear, the consequences of which would be dire. He knows that the US and its militarily impotent NATO allies cannot possibly conduct conventional warfare against Russia or China, much less against both. Putin also undersrtands that the sanctions are damaging Washington’s European vassals and could eventually force the European vassal states into independence that would constrain Washington’s belligerence. Even with Russia’s new super weapons, which probably give Putin the capability of destroying the entirety of the Western World with little or no damage to Russia, Putin sees no point in so much destruction, especially as the consequences are unknown. There could be nuclear winter or other results that would put the planet into decline as a life-sustaining entity.

So, as I have suggested in many columns Putin is acting intelligently. He is in the game for the long term while protecting the world from dangerous war.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Germany Moving SWIFT-ly To CIPS?

August 23, 2018

Is Germany Moving SWIFT-ly To CIPS?

We have detailed how Russia and China have developed independent global payment systems that run parallel to the dollar based SWIFT system. We recently discussed how sanctions against Russia were actually “crushing the American empire“. The dollar based system is now obsolete and the entire world is questioning why the current system is the only way to conduct global trade. Well, it’s not.

The Federal Reserve Note (FRN), U.S. dollar is under attack in a variety of ways. We have been documenting the astronomical growth of the yuan backed futures oil contract and how this is going to impact the FRN and the American economy. We have also pointed out that Russia has dumped approximately 82% of their entire U.S. treasuries and Turkey recently announced they will be offloading approximately 50% of their treasury holdings.

At the most recent BRICS Summit, held in July, one of biggest take-aways was the fact the BRICS alliance was in talks with Turkey and the possibility of Turkey, which is a NATO “partner”, could join BRICS! This is to say nothing of China, which heads the BRICS alliance, is also in talks with Argentina and Venezuela.

Now we learn that Germany is on board with moving away from SWIFT and the “trade wars”, sanctions against Russia and President Trump forcing NATO “partners” to pay up. President Trump’s actions have pushed Germany away from their alliance with the U.S.. The German / Russian partnership is very important to the overall German economy and Trump’s recent demand that Germany stop doing oil business with Russia seems to have pushed them over the edge. There may be more at play here, but most all geopolitical issues in the 21st century boil down to oil, oil production and how to get the cheapest oil possible.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Suicidal Empire

August 22, 2018

The Suicidal Empire

There are a lot of behaviors being exhibited by those in positions of power in the US that seem disparate and odd. We watch Trump who is imposing sanctions on country after country, dreaming of eradicating his country’s structural trade deficit with the rest of the world. We watch pretty much all of US Congress falling over each other in their attempt to impose the harshest possible sanctions on Russia. People in Turkey, a key NATO country, are literally burning US dollars and smashing iPhones in a fit of pique. Confronted with a new suite of Russian and Chinese weapons systems that largely neutralize the ability of the US to dominate the world militarily, the US is setting new records in the size of its already outrageously bloated yet manifestly ineffectual defense spending. As a backdrop to this military contractor feeding frenzy, the Taliban are making steady gains in Afghanistan, now control over half the territory, and are getting ready to stamp “null and void,” in a repeat of Vietnam, on America’s longest war. A lengthening list of countries are set to ignore or compensate for US sanctions, especially sanctions against Iranian oil exports. In a signal moment, Russia’s finance minister has recently pronounced the US dollar “unreliable.” Meanwhile, US debt keeps galloping upwards, with its largest buyer being reported as a mysterious, possibly entirely nonexistent “Other.”

Although these may seem like manifestations of many different trends in the world, I believe that a case can be made that these are all one thing: the US—the world’s imperial overlord—standing on a ledge and threatening to jump, while its imperial vassals—too many to mention—are standing down below and shouting “Please, don’t jump!”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fate Of Key Gas Pipeline In The Balance As Putin, Merkel Begin Meeting

August 18, 2018

Fate Of Key Gas Pipeline In The Balance As Putin, Merkel Begin Meeting

“Russian influence will flow through that pipeline right into Europe, and that is what we are going to prevent,” an unnamed U.S. official told the Wall Street Journal just as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Angela Merkel meet outside of Berlin on Saturday centered on the two countries moving forward with the controversial Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but also involving issues from the Iran nuclear deal to ending the war in Syria.

Intense pressure from Washington is overshadowing the project, construction of which is already in advanced stages, as the WSJ citescurrent and former US officials who say sanctions are under discussion and could be mobilized in a mere matter of weeks.

These potential sanctions, ostensibly being discussed in response to US intelligence claims of Russian interference in the 2016 election,could target companies and financial firms involved in the massive pipeline’s construction.

This comes after comments from President Trump at the opening of a NATO summit in July made things uncomfortable for his German counterpart when he said that Germany is so dependent on Russia for energy that it’s essentially being “held captive” by Vladimir Putin and his government.

“Germany is captive of Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia. They pay billions of dollars to Russia and we have to defend them against Russia,” Trump told NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg at a televised opening breakfast.

The pipeline has been opposed by multiple US administrations, who have long accuse the Kremlin of seeking to accrue political leverage over Europe given the latter’s already high dependence on Russian natural gas. The pipeline has been a frequent talking point and target of attacks by Trump, who has threatened to escalate the trade war against Germany going back months if it supported the construction of the pipeline.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Five examples that show internet censorship is as much a threat to the left as the right

August 18, 2018

Five examples that show internet censorship is as much a threat to the left as the right

The banning of right wing controversialist Alex Jones from multiple social media platforms last week was a cause of celebration for many liberals, but should those on the left really be so complacent about creeping censorship?

So far, the evidence suggest that there is indeed plenty for the left to worry about when it comes to corporations like Facebook and Twitter and their alliances with government censors.

Telesur page takedown: Facebook becoming ‘US govt’s censorship vehicle’

1. Facebook censorship of Venezuelan news

In May, Facebook partnered with the Atlantic Council in an effort to weed out “inauthentic content” on the platform. This organization is funded by various NATO governments and a slew of arms manufacturers like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Its board includes names like Henry Kissinger and former CIA director Michael Hayden — and it has consistently lobbied for regime change in Syria and, you guessed it, Venezuela, where it has funnelled large amounts of money into pro-opposition groups for years.

So, it’s no surprise that weeks after Facebook partnered up with this less-than-objective group, it deleted from its platform the page belonging to top English-language, left-leaning Latin American news outlet Telesur without any explanation at all. The page was restored two days later, with Facebook citing vague “instability on the platform” as the cause of the block.

Telesur just so happens to be one of the only major outlets reporting on events in Venezuela in a manner that goes against the US government position and US mainstream media perspective — so obviously, out with Alex Jones it must go.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Baltic States Never Stop Their War Preparations Against Russia

August 16, 2018

The Baltic States Never Stop Their War Preparations Against Russia

The hue and cry over the possibility of a Russian attack on the Baltic states has grown all out of proportion. NATO is using its “Russian boogeyman” campaign to boost its military presence in the region. With Moscow accused of harboring evil plans, a robust military infrastructure is emerging in the immediate proximity of Russia’s borders. The US footprint is huge. Whatever Russia does (such as deploying its forces or conducting military exercises), it is presented by the Western media as a demonstration of hostile intent, while NATO’s highly provocative behavior is kept out of the spotlight. Any nation would be concerned over war preparations on its doorstep that are being conducted by an unfriendly alliance. Anyone who is impartial would confirm that Moscow’s concern is more than justified.

The US Defense Department’s 2019 fiscal budget became law on Aug. 13. It allocates $6.5 billion for the European Defense Initiative (EDI), $2 billion more than the previous fiscal budget, and nearly double the $3.4 billion the military received in fiscal 2017. The increase is evidence of the focus on building up a robust military force to threaten Russia. Infrastructure improvements in the Baltic states and Poland are a high priority.

According to the Lithuanian Defense Ministry, the updates to the Lithuanian armed forces’ Kazlų Rūda training ground, in the district of Marijampolė, to get it up to NATO standards, are almost complete. The facility will be used to train air crews and controllers. This is a joint project with the United States, funded through the European Reassurance Initiative. American B-52 strategic bombers have already dropped dummy munitions there. The firing range was part of the NATO Saber Strike exercise that was held in June. US National Guard soldiers are there to prepare Kazlų Rūda for another exercise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Always Blame Your Enemy – Turkey is Endangering the Entire World Economy

August 16, 2018

Always Blame Your Enemy – Turkey is Endangering the Entire World Economy

COMMENT: Marty,

On Aug 12/18 you wrote about “Iran and & Turkey Ripe for Revolution?” and in that blog, you mentioned … They will both turn toward Russia for help and portray their political crisis as a CIA plot.

When watching the news the other night, I noticed this is exactly what Turkey is doing; turning to Russia and blaming the USA (in this case Trump). It’s ridiculous how countries turn to the USA for help but then when the USA doesn’t answer these prayers, these countries demonize the USA. This is akin to praying to God to give you millions of dollars and then when you don’t magically win the lottery, you blame God even though he provided you with opportunities and skills that you ignored.

Once again,

Marty, you called it.

Cheers from Calgary.

REPLY: The real crazy thing is this is so standard, it is not even taking a guess. Erdogan hasthreatened to walk into the arms of Russia and Erdogan is simply not someone the West should trust. I have been warning that NATO should absolutely withdraw from Turkey. Until the people overthrow this guy, he should be distanced RIGHT NOW!!!!! He has been against Greece and Israeli. He is by no means of a particular side. He has been fixed on his vision of restoring the Ottoman Empire and he has ruined the economy of Turkey. Erdogan is far more dangerous than any other world leader and the West had better wake up before it is too late.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NATO is a Goldmine for the US/Military Industrial Complex

August 4, 2018

NATO is a Goldmine for the US/Military Industrial Complex

Photo source Parker Gyokeres | CC BY 2.0

Countries of the NATO military alliance have been ordered by President Trump to increase their spending on weapons, and the reasons for his insistence they do so are becoming clearer. It’s got nothing to do with any defense rationale, because the Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, has admitted that “we don’t see any imminent threat against any NATO ally” and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) recorded in its 2018 World Report that “Russia’s military spending in 2017 was 20 per cent lower than in 2016.”

Even Radio Free Europe, the US government’s official broadcaster, acknowledged that “Russia, one of the world’s top military spenders, reduced its defense budget by 20 percent in 2016-2017 to $55.3 billion” compared, for example, to the $56.3 billion of France. As SIPRI records, “together, the European NATO members spent over 4 times more on the military in 2017 than Russia,” and Nato Watch summed it up by pointing out that the 29 US-NATO countries “collectively spent over 12 times more on the military in 2016 than Russia.”

There is demonstrably no threat whatever to any NATO country by Russia, but this is considered irrelevant in the context of US arms’ sales, which are flourishing and being encouraged to increase and multiply as a result of Congressional and Pentagon scare-mongering.

On July 12, the second and final day of the recent US-NATO pantomime gathering, Reuters reported Trump as saying that “the United States makes by far the best military equipment in the world: the best jets, the best missiles, the best guns, the best everything.” He went on “to list the top US arms makers, Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp by name.”

On July 11 the Nasdaq Stock Exchange listed the stock price of Lockheed Martin at $305.68. The day after Trump’s speech, it increased to $318.37.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Nord Stream 2’s Confusing Endgame

July 22, 2018

Nord Stream 2’s Confusing Endgame

The summer of 2018 will go into history as the moment when a US president fundamentally and decisively changed the international world order which its predecessors worked hard on during the past decades. Within approximately a week from 11 July until 16 July, President Donald Trump achieved to insult its key allies in Europe and fundamentally undermine NATO and the EU, while cozying up to what seems to be the most important adversary of the West. While this week will go into history as an arduous one for the presidency of Trump, for President Vladimir Putin, in contrast, it is one of his best since the Ukraine crisis began in 2015.

The strategic interests of Russia were met in considerable ways as its key adversaries are divided due to Trump’s bellicose and aggressive language before and during the yearly NATO summit in Brussels. The unprecedented attack on Germany during a televised lunch, which caught off-guard the host Secretary-General Stoltenberg, in many ways showcased the current administration’s interest in the financial and energy domain.

Trump claimed “Germany is totally controlled by Russia. They will be getting between 60 and 70 percent of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline.” Although this is factually untrue, Germany imports 33 percent of its gas and 40 percent oil from Russia, these statements spread confusion as to what Trump’s actual endgame is. Several options are possible as to the true intentions of these statements.

This could be a negotiating strategy of Trump by putting pressure on Germany in order of significantly increasing its defense expenditure. Although NATO leaders reaffirmed after the gathering on 12 July their commitment to the pre-Trump agreement of gradually increasing defense expenditure, the US president seems adamant on even more. Trump claimed that the remaining NATO members have agreed to increase expenditure to 4 percent instead of 2 percent. This was rebuffed by the other alliance members.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Psychoanalysing NATO: Gaslighting

July 18, 2018

Psychoanalysing NATO: Gaslighting

NOTE: Because “NATO” these days is little more than a box of spare parts out of which Washington assembles “coalitions of the willing”, it’s easier for me to write “NATO” than “Washington plus/minus these or those minions”.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid has called on Russia to explain “exactly what has gone on” after two people were exposed to the Novichok nerve agent in Wiltshire. (BBC)

The Russian state could put this wrong right. They could tell us what happened. What they did. And fill in some of the significant gaps that we are trying to pursue. We have said they can come and tell us what happened. I’m waiting for the phone call from the Russian state. The offer is there. They are the ones who could fill in all the clues to keep people safe. (UK security minister Ben Wallace)

Leaving aside their egregious flouting of the elemental principle of English justice, note that they’re uttering this logical idiocy: Russia must have done it because it hasn’t proved it didn’t. Note also, in Javid’s speech, the amusing suggestion that Russia keeps changing its story; but to fit into the official British story “novichok” must be an instantly lethal slow acting poison which dissipates quickly but lasts for months.

This is an attempt to manipulate our perception of reality. In a previous essay I discussed NATO’s projection of its own actions onto Russia. In this piece I want to discuss another psychological manipulation – gaslighting.

The expression comes from the movie Gaslight in which the villain manipulates her reality to convince his wife that she is insane. Doubt the official Skripal story and it is you – you “Russian troll” – who is imagining things.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Lessons That Should Have Been Learned From NATO’s Destruction of Libya

July 14, 2018

Lessons That Should Have Been Learned From NATO’s Destruction of Libya

Photo by Bernd.Brincken | CC BY 2.0

The summit meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the military alliance that is expanding its deployments of troops, combat and surveillance aircraft and missile ships around Russia’s borders, took place on July 11-12 and was a farce, with Trump behaving in his usual way, insulting individuals and nations with characteristic vulgarity.

Before the jamboree, NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg (one of those selected for a Trumpian harangue), recounted in a speech on 21 June that “NATO has totally transformed our presence in Afghanistan from a big combat operation with more than 100,000 to now 16,000 troops conducting training, assisting and advising.” But then he had a bit of a rethink when he was asked a question about whether NATO had learnt any lessons that might make it think about “intervening in the future.” To give him his due, Stoltenberg replied that he thought “one of the lessons we have learned from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from Libya, is that military intervention is not always solving all problems.”

He is absolutely right about that, because the US-NATO military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have been catastrophic.

It is intriguing that NATO’s secretary general can at last admit that military muscle doesn’t solve every problem, but he did not expand on the subject of Libya, which unhappy country was destroyed by US-NATO military intervention in 2011, and it is interesting to reflect on that particular NATO debacle, because it led directly to expansion of the Islamic State terrorist group, a prolonged civil war, a vast number of deaths, and hideous suffering by desperate refugees trying to flee from Libya across the Mediterranean.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

NATO is a Con Game

July 12, 2018

NATO is a Con Game

Marc Riboud Forbidden City under the snow, Beijing 1957

Okay, well, Trump did it again. Antagonizing allies. This time it was Germany that took the main hit, over the fact that it pays Russia billions of dollars for oil and gas while relying on the US for its defense … against Russia. And yes, that is a strange situation. But it’s by no means the only angle to the story. There are many more.

For one thing, The US has by far the largest military industry. So it makes a lot of money off the billions already spent by NATO partners on weaponry. Of course Raytheon, Boeing et al would like to see them spend more. But once they would have done that, they would clamor for even more after.

At some point one must ask how much should really be spent. How much is enough, how much is necessary. The military-industrial complex (MIC) has every reason to make the threat posed by ‘enemies’ as big as they possibly can. So knowing that, we must take media reports on this threat with tons of salt.

And that is not easy. Because the MIC has great influence in politics and the media. But we can turn to some numbers. According to GlobalFirePower, the US in 2018 will spend $647 billion on its military, while Russia is to spend a full $600 billion less, at $47 billion. And the US Senate has already voted in a $82 billion boost recently.

There are other numbers out there that suggest Russia spends $60 billion, but even then. If Moscow spends just 10% of the US, and much less than that once all NATO members’ expenditure is included, how much of a threat can Russia realistically be to NATO?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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