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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned on Ankara’s allies, insinuating that the US in particular has been providing massive military support to Kurdish YPG in Syria.

In a speech to his ruling AK Party, RT reports that Erdogan said that ‘some allies’ of Turkey had provided the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia with 2,000 planeloads and 5,000 truckloads of weapons.

“Now, apart from 5,000 trucks, there are weapons and ammunition from around 2,000 planes.” the Turkish leader said.

He also accused Ankara’s allies of dishonesty when they say that they do not provide weapons for “terrorists,”referring to Kurdish-linked YPG forces.

It was not just Washington that Turkish officials were accusing, they specifically accused France of supporting terrorism ahead of an emergency UN session set for Monday…

“Anyone who opposes Turkey’s operation in northern Syria’s Afrin region is siding with terrorists and will be treated accordingly,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Sunday.

“We hope France will support Turkey’s operation against terrorists in Syria,” the minister added in reference to what Turkey has dubbed ‘Operation Olive Branch’.

After the Turkish military invaded northwest Syria over the weekend in an operation that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan described as cleaning out Kurdish “terror nests”, France called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

FM Çavuşoğlu’s words were given in warning to French politicians who say they will take up the issue of Turkish aggression at the UN. France has urged Turkey to exercise restraint in its air and land assault targeting US-backed Kurdish forces in Afrin, near Turkey’s border.

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

Wolf Blitzer Is Worried Defense Contractors Will Lose Jobs if U.S. Stops Arming Saudi Arabia

September 10, 2016

Wolf Blitzer Is Worried Defense Contractors Will Lose Jobs if U.S. Stops Arming Saudi Arabia

SEN. RAND PAUL’S expression of opposition to a $1.1 billion U.S. arms sale to Saudi Arabia — which has been brutally bombing civilian targets in Yemen using U.S.-made weapons for more than a year now — alarmed CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Thursday afternoon.

Blitzer’s concern: That stopping the sale could result in fewer jobs for arms manufacturers.

“So for you this is a moral issue,” he told Paul during the Kentucky Republican’s appearance on CNN. “Because you know, there’s a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there’s going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States. That’s secondary from your standpoint?”

Paul stayed on message. “Well not only is it a moral question, its a constitutional question,” Paul said. “Our founding fathers very directly and specifically did not give the president the power to go to war. They gave it to Congress. So Congress needs to step up and this is what I’m doing.”

Watch the exchange:

Saudi Arabia began bombing Yemen in March 2015, and has since been responsible for the majority of the 10,000 deaths in the war so far. The U.S.-backed bombing coalition has been accused of intentionally targeting civilians, hospitals, factories, markets, schools, and homes. The situation is so bad that the Red Cross has started donating morgue units to Yemeni hospitals.

The war’s incredible humanitarian toll has generated an increasing outcry in the United States. Earlier this month, more than 60 members of Congress signed a letter asking the administration to delay the most recent arms shipment. Ordinarily, under the Arms Export Control Act, Congress has 30 days to block arms sales proposed by the administration — but by announcing the arms sale in August, most of those 30 days fell during Congress’s August recess.

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

Stéphane Dion approves export permits for $11B in LAVs to be sent to Saudi Arabia

April 14, 2016

Stéphane Dion approves export permits for $11B in LAVs to be sent to Saudi Arabia

Documents say past sales have not been linked to violations of civil or political rights in the kingdom

Documents obtained by CBC News are shedding light on the strategy the federal government is using to justify the sale of light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia.

The newly revealed documents from Global Affairs Canada confirm that Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion has signed off on export permits to ship $11 billion worth of the $15-billion vehicle sale to the desert kingdom.

These documents also say that it’s rare for a foreign affairs minister to personally sign off on export permits, but that this is an exception because the deal is so high profile — and worth so much money.

The deal with Saudi Arabia was struck by Stephen Harper’s government, and when it was announced the Conservatives used the opportunity to tout the thousands of jobs it would create and sustain in southern Ontario.

But since the sale of vehicles by General Dynamics Land Systems was announced, questions have emerged over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.

Saudi rights violations noted

The documents acknowledge these concerns noting; “the reported high number of executions, suppression of political opposition, the application of corporal punishment, suppression of freedom of expression, arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment of detainees, limitations of freedom of religion, discrimination against women and the mistreatment of migrant workers.”

The document goes on to say that Canadian officials “engage regularly with Saudi officials” when required to raise human rights issues of concern while at the same time describing Canada’s military alliance with the kingdom as having been “cemented” during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

“Saudi Arabia is a key military ally supporting international efforts to counter ISIS in Iraq and Syria as well as countering instability in Yemen,” the documents says.

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

Unlimited Propagandistic Lying from CNN

April 3, 2016

Unlimited Propagandistic Lying from CNN

On Saturday April 2nd, CNN headlined, “U.S. F-15s Deployed to Iceland,” and Zachary Cohen opened:

Demonstrating its commitment to a ‘free’ and ‘secure’ Europe, the United States deployed 12 F-15C Eagles and approximately 350 airmen to Iceland and the Netherlands on Friday, the Air Force announced.

U.S. aircraft units from the 131st Fighter Squadron at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts and the 194th Fighter Squadron at Fresno Air National Guard Base in California will support NATO air surveillance missions in Iceland and conduct flying training in the Netherlands.

The F-15s are not the only package of American fighters being sent to Europe in an effort to deter further Russian aggression in the region.

Next to that text appears a video from Christiane Amanpour, “Amanpour in Focus,” which opens with her saying:

Of all the crises plaguing Europe right now — Grexit, Brexit, the migrant crisis, the economy even still — the worst, by far, is the Ukraine-Russia crisis, which still has the potential to flare into open warfare beyond the borders of Ukraine; and who would have thought that in two thousand [inaudible]teen, we would still hear President Vladimir Putin sometimes raise the nuclear option. This extraordinary state of affairs has come from Ukrainians protesting for their independence — they saw off one President, and they elected another one, Petro Poroshenko.

Here’s the actual history behind all of that:

Back in February 2014, Obama overthrew (please click on the link if you have any doubt about anything that’s being said here) the democratically elected President of Russia’s neighbor Ukraine, in an extremely bloody coup, which was at least a year in being set-up, and the rationale for this ‘democratic uprising’ was that that actually democratically elected President was corrupt — but no one mentioned that all of Ukraine’s post-Soviet leaders have been corrupt.

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

Growing International Movement Seeks to Place Arms Embargo on Saudi Arabia

March 30, 2016

GROWING INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT SEEKS TO PLACE ARMS EMBARGO ON SAUDI ARABIA

A LAWSUIT FILED last week in Canada is seeking to halt a major $15 billion sale of light-armored vehicles to the government of Saudi Arabia, part of a growing international movement to stop arms sales to the Saudi government over its alleged war crimes in Yemen.

The suit, filed by University of Montreal constitutional law professor Daniel Turp, argues the vehicle sales to Saudi Arabia violate a number of Canadian laws, including regulations on the export of military equipment, which prohibit arms sales to countries where human rights are “subject to serious and repeated violations” and there is a reasonable risk exported equipment “will be used against the civilian population.” Saudi Arabia, which has a deplorable human rights record at home, has inflicted considerable civilian casualties in Yemen as part of its yearlong bombing campaign in support of the contested government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

“The suppression of human rights in Saudi Arabia and the Saudi government’s actions during the war in Yemen make the sale of these armored vehicles legally unacceptable,” Turp said.

The lawsuit comes in the wake of growing evidence of war crimes by Saudi-led forces, including the use of cluster munitions in civilian areas and the designation of entire cities as military targets. A particularly gruesome attack earlier this month killed 120 civilians at a market in the town of Mastaba, including at least 20 children. Last week, in response to these atrocities, Human Rights Watch demanded that Western countries impose an arms embargo on the Saudi government over its conduct in the war.

Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest arms purchasers in the world, spending billions of dollars annually in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to outfit its military.

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

Former Bush Official Just Confirmed That Our Wars Are for Corporate Interests

March 30, 2016

Former Bush Official Just Confirmed That Our Wars Are for Corporate Interests

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — “I think Smedley Butler was onto something,”Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former George W. Bush administration heavyweight, told Salon in an exclusive interview.

Major General Smedley Butler earned the highest rank in the U.S. Marine Corps, accumulating numerous accolades as he helped lead the United States through decades of war. He later became an ardent critic of such militarism and imperialism.

“War is a racket,” Butler famously said, and Wilkerson — who has also turned critical of U.S. imperialist policy — agrees with and admires the esteemed Marine.

Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to former secretary of state, Colin Powell, has grown tired of “the corporate interests that we go abroad to slay monsters for.”

Of the profiteering scheme that wars have come to embody, Wilkerson quoted Butler:

“Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

Noting Butler’s brief but accurate characterization of what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, Wilkerson added that today’s war machine “is more pernicious than Eisenhower ever thought it would be.”

The willingness of such weapons and military equipment corporations to excuse the transgressions of repressive and abusive regimes in the Middle East and Asia for the sake of profit, Wilkerson asserted, stands as evidence Eisenhower underestimated the extent the to which the problem would manifest.

“Was Bill Clinton’s expansion of NATO — after George H. W. Bush and [his Secretary of State] James Baker had assured Gorbachev and then Yeltsin that we wouldn’t go an inch further east — was this for Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, and Boeing, and others, to increase their network of potential weapons sales?” Wilkerson asked.

“You bet it was,” he answered his own question.

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

The Netherlands Just Banned Weapon Sales to Saudi Arabia over Human Rights Abuses

March 17, 2016

The Netherlands Just Banned Weapon Sales to Saudi Arabia over Human Rights Abuses

Landmark bill cites UN figures that Saudi-led troops has killed nearly 6,000 people in Yemen—half of them civilians.

Dutch lawmakers have voted to ban weapons exports to Saudi Arabia over the kingdom’s violations of humanitarian law, making the Netherlands the first country in the European Union (EU) to follow through on a motion by the European Parliament in February.

The landmark resolution, approved on Tuesday, asks the Dutch government to impose a full arms embargo on Saudi Arabia, including dual-use exports that could be used to violate human rights. The bill cites United Nations figures that Saudi-led troops have killed nearly 6,000 people in Yemen—half of them civilians.

The bill also noted the Saudi government’s ongoing executions of its own citizens, many of them political dissidents.

The parliamentary vote puts additional pressure on other EU governments, such as Britain and France—Saudi Arabia’s core suppliers of weapons, in addition to the U.S.—to enact a similar ban. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), the UK has sold about $9.4 billion (£6.7 billion) in weapons to the Saudi government under Prime Minister David Cameron’s administration.

“Saudi Arabia has a terrible human rights record and governments like the UK must stop supporting it,” Andrew Smith, CAAT spokesperson, told TheIndependent on Wednesday. “The bombardment of Yemen has lasted almost a year now and the humanitarian situation is desperate.”

“The Dutch parliament has set an important precedent and it’s time for other arms dealing governments to do the same,” Smith said. “The decision can’t just be temporary though, it must be permanent.”

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

European Ban on Saudi Arms Sales Bolsters Foes of Canadian Deal

February 26, 2016

European Ban on Saudi Arms Sales Bolsters Foes of Canadian Deal

Move puts pressure on government to justify $15-billion contract, says Amnesty.

The Saudi National Guard tweeted this photo of armoured vehicles moving to the Yemeni border in November 2015. An anonymous source told the Globe and Mail they were made in Canada.

A move to ban weapons exports to Saudi Arabia by members of the European Union bolsters the case of Canadians who oppose their own government selling military vehicles to the kingdom, says a human rights group.

On Thursday, the EU passed a non-binding resolution “to launch an initiative aimed at imposing an EU arms embargo against Saudi Arabia” over its involvement in the conflict in Yemen.

“The resolution acknowledges that Saudi Arabia and Iran are instrumental in resolving the crisis in Yemen,” said an EU press release.

The civil war in Yemen has intensified since last March, according to Amnesty International, resulting in the shelling, bombing and deaths of thousands of people.

Saudi Arabia heads a nine-country coalition of nations in the region who have intervened in the conflict on the side of Yemen’s central government.

The coalition has engaged in a heavy-bombing campaign and has been accused by the United Nations of major human-rights violations.

In 2014, the Conservative government facilitated a $15-billion contract for light-armoured vehicles for the Saudi military to be made by General Dynamics Systems Canada in London, Ontario.

The new Liberal government has said while it may not approve of the $15-billion deal in principle, it will not cancel the contract.

Hilary Homes, spokesperson for Amnesty International Canada, said the EU resolution strengthens the case of those pushing for Canada to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, or at least be more transparent about the deal.

“It certainly increases the pressure to explain their ongoing position around the deal,” she said.

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

Trudeau & the Saudi Arms Deal

February 11, 2016

Trudeau & the Saudi Arms Deal

shutterstock_347301317

Things are definitely heating up around the controversial $15 billion Saudi arms deal that the Canadian government of Stephen Harper arranged in 2014 on behalf of General Dynamics and which the new Justin Trudeau Liberal government refuses to cancel.

In recent days, University of Montreal law professor Daniel Turp (an expert in international and constitutional law) and 17 students have filed a class action lawsuit against Ottawa in Quebec Superior Court, seeking to block shipments of the combat vehicles – a move that could force the governing Liberals to explain how they justify the sale. [1] The group also intends to file a similar legal action in Federal Court within the next three weeks. [2]

As I wrote in CounterPunch last October, in 2014 the Harper government announced that the Canadian Commercial Corporation (a Crown corporation) “had secured the largest weapons manufacturing contract in Canadian history: supplying armoured military vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The contract was secured for General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, a subsidiary of the U.S. giant, which has weapons manufacturing plants in Ontario and Alberta employing a total of about 3,000 workers…It is now widely known that Saudi Arabia has long been funding terrorist activities in the Middle East.” [3]

Professor Turp and the student group have launched an initiative called Operation Armoured Rights, by which they “intend to contest, by all legal means at our disposal, the legality of exporting such military equipment.”

Their (January 2016) Open Letter states: “If the Canadian government refuses to show consistency between the ideals of human rights and its decisions on military exports, it is nevertheless required to comply with the law…Guidelines adopted by the cabinet in 1986 stated that ‘Canada closely controls the export of military goods and technology to countries […] whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens, unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.’

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

Is Canada failing to live up to its human rights commitments with its arms deals?

January 10, 2016

Is Canada failing to live up to its human rights commitments with its arms deals?

A soldier with the Gulf Co-operation Council forces prays in front of his armoured personnel carrier as his fellow solider keeps watch while they guard the Bahrain Financial Harbour in Manama. (James Lawler Duggan/Reuters)

Listen 7:58

Canada has condemned a spate of executions in Saudi Arabia, but says it won’t call down its $15 billion armoured vehicles deal with the kingdom. While that deal may be the biggest, it’s not Canada’s only arms deal with countries with human rights issues and internal conflicts. Cesar Jaramillo, Executive Director of Project Ploughshares, argues that Canada is breaking international agreements and Canadian law by failing to be transparent about arms deals with countries including Afghanistan, Egypt, Libya, Ukraine, Bahrain, Iraq, Colombia, and others.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Brent Bambury: Stéphane Dion says the contracts with Saudi Arabia won’t be cancelled. They’re going to look at how future contracts are approved. But we have rules in place. Do you think those rules were followed in the case
of Saudi Arabia?

Cesar Jaramillo: I am certain that there is a lack of clarity about the extent to which these rules were followed. A
recurring theme with this contract has being a lack of transparency. This contract has been shrouded in secrecy since it was announced in December of 2014. You fast forward to today and there isn’t that much more that we know about the details of the contract.

BB: According to our own regulations, the way that I understand it, Canada is only allowed to sell arms if there is no reasonable risk that those arms will be used against civilians. Is there any way to determine whether Canada has made that clear in the case of Saudi Arabia?

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

Defense Industry Revenue Forecast Gushes Over Global Turmoil

January 10, 2016

Defense Industry Revenue Forecast Gushes Over Global Turmoil

The global aerospace and defense industry is out of its doldrums. According to a new report by the accounting firm Deloitte, “the resurgence of global security threats” promises a lucrative “rebound” in defense spending.

The report alerts investors that “revenue growth” is “expected to take a positive turn” due to the terrorism and war in the Middle East and the tensions in Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.

Many analysts predicted declining revenue for the weapons industry as the U.S. scaled down military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. After all, as this chart from the Deloitte report shows, no other country even comes close to spending as much as the U.S. does.

But now governments around the world have moved swiftly to hike defense budgets to “combat terrorism and address sovereign security matters.”

The Deloitte report is almost giddy:

2015 was a pivotal year that saw heightened tensions between China, its neighbors and the US over “island building” in the South and East China Seas, and the related claims of sovereign ocean territory rights by China. In addition, Russia and the Ukraine are at odds related to Russia’s takeover of Crimea and their military actions in Eastern Ukraine. North Korea continues to threaten its neighbors with its nuclear ambitions and aggressive rocket launches. The Islamic State (ISIS) has become a key threat in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan and is involved in exporting terrorism to Europe, Africa, and elsewhere. The recent tragic bombings in Paris, Beirut, Mali, the Sinai Peninsula, and other places have emboldened nations to join in the fight against terrorism.

Several governments affected by these threats are increasing their defense budgets to combat terrorism and address sovereign security matters, including cyber-threats. For defense contractors, this represents an opportunity to sell more equipment and military weapons systems.

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

America’s Subservience to Saud Family

January 10, 2016

America’s Subservience to Saud Family

The Saud royal family are by far the world’s largest buyers of US weapons. The King of Saudi Arabia is by far the world’s richest person, with a net worth well over a trillion dollars; and, when his (Aramco’s) 260 billion barrels of oil reserves were valued at $100 per barrel, his net worth was over $15 trillion. The King has total control over the world’s largest (in terms of dollar-value) company: Aramco. Since 1980, the Saudi government has owned 100% of it; the Saudi government is totally under the King’s exclusive control. The King owns all that oil. Forbes and Bloomberg decline to estimate his wealth, because kings don’t want them to; but, clearly, it dwarfs that of anyone such as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. And Gates and Buffett don’t possess the power to keep their wealth from becoming published, but the Saudi King does.

On 13 September 2010, Britain’s Telegraph headlined «US secures record $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia». On 28 January 2012, Dayton Business Journal bannered «Top 10 foreign buyers of US weapons», and Saudi Arabia was #1 that year, with $13.8 billion. #2 was UAE, with 10.4 billion. UAE is run by six royal families, all friends of the Saud family; and, like the Sauds, they follow the strictest, Wahhabist-Salafist, form of Islam, the type of Sunni Islam that’s preached by ISIS and by Al-Qaeda. Current ‘defense’ expenditure figures aren’t available; but, clearly, the Sauds are now fully embroiled in slaughtering Shiites both in Yemen and in Syria, and are buying far more US weapons today than they were before – the sum probably dwarfs any previous sales-volume.

It’s good business for the owners of US ‘Defense’ contractors. On 15 May 2015, Alex Kane at Alternet headlined «4 US Companies Getting Rich Off Gulf Arab Conflict With Iran», and the companies were: Boeing, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and United Technologies. In 2015, lobbying for the «Defense» sector amounted to $96 million. $56 million of that was specifically on «Defense Aerospace».

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

US Enabled Saudi Arabia’s Crackdown on Pro-Democracy Protesters

January 5, 2016

US Enabled Saudi Arabia’s Crackdown on Pro-Democracy Protesters

saudi_arabia_man_execution_beheading_afp

Just days before Saudi Arabia performed a mass execution of 47 people, including four pro-democracy protesters; the US approved tens of millions in military contracts to the Saudi government. The contracts include $24 million to Raytheon Company for equipment relating to Patriot missiles, $12 million to Advanced Electronics Co. for electronics updates to F-15 fighter jets, and tens of millions of dollars to Boeing Co. for implementation of a laser guided, air-to-ground weapons system.

The Pentagon announced the contracts three days before the execution of four non-violent Shia protesters. The majority of the executions were carried out in the form of beheadings—the same form of execution favored by ISIS.

The weapons contracts draw attention to the US government’s continued arming of the Saudi government, which regularly engages in human rights abuses at home and abroad. Despite recent allegations of war crimes against Saudi Arabia for its war in Yemen, the US continues to replenish Saudi’s arsenal with billions in weapons.

As a result, Amnesty International has accused the US of violating the Arms Trade Treaty. The treaty prohibits the sale of arms if there is knowledge the weapons will be used against civilians. The International Committee of the Red Cross has documented 100 instances of the Saudi-led coalition attacking hospitals in Yemen.

Among those executed earlier this week was the Sheik Nimr al-Nimr, who was well known to Shia Muslims around the world. Al-Nimr was a leader of the 2011 Arab Spring protest in Saudi Arabia’s Shia region. His execution sparked protests in multiple countries including Iran, where protesters set the Saudi Embassy ablaze. In response to the embassy fire, Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic relations with Iran.

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

America’s Vampire Aristocracy

January 3, 2016

America’s Vampire Aristocracy

On January 2nd, America’s NBC News bannered “Arab Spring Cleric Nimr al-Nimr Among 47 Executed by Saudi Arabia,” and, one-third of the way into their report, showed this tweet:

“Saudi execution of Nimr al-Nimr along w/ al Qaeda members is straight from Assad’s playbook – lumping nonviolent activists with terrorists.

— DavidKenner (@DavidKenner) January 2, 2016”

Even when Sunni-Islamic extremists, the Sauds, perpetrate mass-murder, in Saudi Arabia and not only in Yemen and in Syria, the U.S. ‘news’ media find some way to smear their audience’s minds with the demon, “Bashar al-Assad,” as if Assad actually had anything to do with it, and the King of Saudi Arabia, King Salman, had nothing to do with it. Salman, who owns Saudi Arabia and everyone in it (and who even allows outright slavery there), wasn’t so much as mentioned by the NBC ‘News’ ‘reporter’ or propagandist. (Assad was mentioned in that ‘news’ report only because Assad allies with the U.S. aristocracy’s super-demon, Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia, who refuses to do the U.S. aristocracy’s bidding, such as his predecessor Boris Yeltsin, much praised by the U.S. aristocracy, had done.)

America’s main ally, and the largest customer for American-made weapons, the royal family that owns and runs Saudi Arabia, had just started out a new year of mass-executions, after their near-record year of 2015: the AP headlined only the day before, on New Year’s Day, “Saudi Beheadings Soar in 2015,” and reported that, “Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 executions in 2015, with beheadings reaching their highest level in the kingdom in two decades, according to several advocacy groups that monitor the death penalty worldwide.” (King Salman wasn’t mentioned in that one, either.)

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

Swiss Army Chief Warns Of Social Unrest, Calls Upon Citizens To Arm Themselves

December 30, 2015

Swiss Army Chief Warns Of Social Unrest, Calls Upon Citizens To Arm Themselves

Swiss army chief André Blattmann warned, in a Swiss newspaper article on Sunday, the risks of social unrest in Europe are soaring. Recalling the experience of 1939/1945, Blattman fears the increasing aggression in public discourse is an explosively hazardous situation, and advises the Swiss people to arm themselves and warns that the basis for Swiss prosperity is “being called into question.”

As Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reports, speaking on the record for the first time since the November Paris terror attacks, Blattmann told the paper that despite a rise in security incidents over the past two years Switzerland’s means of defence were being reduced.

The situation is growing increasingly risky, Blattman begins.

“The threat of terror is rising, hybrid wars are being fought around the globe; the economic outlook is gloomy and the resulting migration flows of displaced persons and refugees have assumed unforeseen dimensions.”

The situation is growing increasingly risky, Blattman begins.

“The threat of terror is rising, hybrid wars are being fought around the globe; the economic outlook is gloomy and the resulting migration flows of displaced persons and refugees have assumed unforeseen dimensions.”

Blattmann: “Social unrest can not be ruled out”, the vocabulary in public discourse will “dangerously aggressive.”

“The mixture is increasingly unappetizing” Blattmann sees the basis of Swiss prosperity, “has long been once again called into question.”

He recalls the situation around the two world wars in the last century and advises Switzerland, to arm themselves.

The Swiss Armed Forces had held many years ago maneuver, in which the starting point was focused on social unrest in Europe.

* * *

Swiss politicians, of course, responded with disbelief to the army chief and hold his warnings are exaggerated.

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