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Why Saudi Purge Signals War Footing
Why Saudi Purge Signals War Footing
Mass arrests of senior royals, amid fear of assassinations, indicate that what is going on in Saudi Arabia is a far-reaching purge. The facade of a “corruption probe” – promoted in part by Western news media and US President Donald Trump – is a barely credible cover.
The cover is not just for a ruthless power grab within the desert kingdom by Saudi rulers, but a realignment that also puts the entire Middle East region on notice for more conflict and possibly even an all-out war with Iran. A war that the Israeli state and the Trump administration are enthusiastically egging on.
This move towards war with Iran could explain why the Saudi royals made a landmark trip to Moscow last month. Was it an attempt to buy off Russia with oil and weapons deals in order to free the Saudi hand with regard to Iran?
In typical fragmented fashion, Western media have tended to report the mass arrest last weekend of royal princes, ministers and business leaders, carried out under the orders of King Salman and his heir Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as a crackdown on corruption and business sleaze.
Omitted in media coverage is the significant wider context of the Saudi rulers moving at the same time to exert political control over regional politicians, as well as making sensational claims that Iran and Lebanon have “declared war” on Saudi Arabia by allegedly supporting a missile strike from Yemen.
The apparent forced resignation of Lebanese premier Saad Hariri last weekend after having been summoned to Saudi capital Riyadh provided convenient substance to Saudi claims that Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah were destabilizing Lebanon and indeed plotting to assassinate Hariri.
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Trump Pushes War with Iran
Trump Pushes War with Iran
Iran has responded furiously to what it called “reckless” Saudi threats after the latter accused Iran of “an act of war” in carrying out a long-range ballistic strike near the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Iran categorically denied any involvement in the missile attack at the weekend, which reports say was mounted by Houthi rebels in Yemen on Saudi Arabia’s southern border.
However, the Saudi rulers were quick to accuse Iran of supplying the Houthi militants with the ballistic weapon and thereby carrying out an act of war on Saudi Arabia. No evidence was presented in support of the Saudi claims.
Nevertheless, the Saudi position was immediately backed up by US President Donald Trump who, while on a tour of Asia, asserted: “Iran just took a shot at Saudi Arabia.”
This automatic concurrence of views between Trump and the Saudi rulers suggests a level of concerted thinking by Washington and Riyadh, with the aim of incriminating Iran.
In other words, Saudi Arabia’s provocative accusations against Iran – which could serve as a pretext for a military escalation – are not just isolated bluster from Riyadh.
The alarming thing is that the Trump administration has been coordinating its hostile rhetoric towards Iran for several months now, along with Saudi Arabia and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. All three allies have been using virtually the same talking-points, making hollow accusations against Iran of sponsoring terrorism and destabilizing the Middle East region.
Trump’s threat to tear up the international nuclear accord with Iran and the reimposition of economic sanctions is also part of what appears to be an agenda of stoking a confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Before its 1979 revolution, Iran was a loyal client regime of the US. Washington, it seems, has never gotten over the loss of its Persian vassal state.
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Direct Rule: the Latest Weapon for Crumbling Governments
Direct Rule: the Latest Weapon for Crumbling Government
The recent imposition of direct rule by the Spanish government on the autonomous region of Catalonia is having a ripple effect across Europe and around the world. Spain’s neo-fascist prime minister, Mariano Rajoy of the Popular Party – the ideological heirs of Caudillo Francisco Franco’s Falangist Movement – plunged a dagger into the cause of democracy in Catalonia by suspending the region’s pro-independence government and imprisoning eight members of the Catalonian “Generalitat” government.
The imposition of direct rule on Catalonia was a longtime goal of the Madrid regime for years. Catalonia sought the same autonomous powers afforded to Spain’s Basque region, most notably, the power of taxation. However, Castilians of Madrid and other “taker” regions that rely on Spain’s national budget for their benefits, have grown comfortable with the fact that Catalonia provides much of Spain’s budget. Catalonia’s wish to keep more of its tax money in the region and not have it distributed to “taker” regions of Spain, led the Rajoy regime and Spain’s Supreme Court to reject expanded autonomy powers for Catalonia. Catalonia’s independence referendum grew directly out of Madrid’s rejection of a negotiated agreement with the Barcelona government.
As the Madrid regime was hauling members of the Catalonian government before kangaroo courts in Madrid, the British government was moving to impose direct rule on autonomous Northern Ireland. The reason for London’s actions was officially stated as providing Northern Ireland with a Westminster-dictated budget. However, the move by London essentially stripped the Stormont Assembly in Belfast of all financial powers, a move that reversed the devolution of powers to Northern Ireland’s coalition government of the Protestant Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and the mainly Catholic Sinn Fein party.
The reversal of devolution of powers in Northern Ireland and the de facto imposition of direct rule by London served as a backdrop to calls for more Northern Ireland sovereignty with Britain’s exit from the European Union.
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US Boosts Special Operations Forces Presence at Russia’s Border
US Boosts Special Operations Forces Presence at Russia’s Border
The deployment of US Special Operations Forces in Europe is never in spotlight but it is rapidly increasing. There can be no other purpose than acquisition of capability to deliver strikes deep into Russia’s territory.
The Trump administration is relying heavily on Special Operations Forces (SOF). They are deployed to 137 countries or 70% of them in the world. At least 8,000 of SOF are operating in around 80 countries at any given moment. The numbers have ballooned from a few thousands in the 1980s to 70,000 at present. In 2016, the US deployed special operators to Taiwan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Laos, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan. In 2006, 3 percent of special operators deployed overseas were in Europe. In 2016, the number topped 12 percent.
Much has been said recently about SOF operations in Africa, which are going to expand and intensify. Formally, they are on train and assist missions to counter terrorist threats. But one can hardly imagine the need to deploy such special purpose forces from overseas to fight terrorists in the Old Continent.
The United States increased the presence of SOF in Europe four times last year. The forces are mainly deployed near Russia’s borders, including such countries as the Baltic States, Romania, Poland, Ukraine and Georgia. In 2017, SOF have deployed to more than 20 European countries.
In March, SOF (Army Green Berets) trained along local troops in Lapland, Finland, during exercise Northern Griffin 2017. In May, Navy SEALs were part of exercise Flaming Sword 17 in Lithuania. In June, members of the US 10th Special Forces Group trained near Lubliniec, Poland. In July, naval SOF took part in Sea Breeze annual military exercise in Ukraine.
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The Myth of European Democracy: A Shocking Revelation
The Myth of European Democracy: A Shocking Revelation
It’s an open secret that the “Soros network” has an extensive sphere of influence in the European Parliament and in other European Union institutions. The list of Soros has been made public recently. The document lists 226 MEPs from all sides of political spectrum, including former President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt, seven vice-presidents, and a number of committee heads, coordinators, and quaestors. These people promote the ideas of Soros, such as bringing in more migrants, same-sex marriages, integration of Ukraine into the EU, and countering Russia. There are 751 members of the European Parliament. It means that the Soros friends have more than one third of seats.
George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and the founder and owner of Open Society Foundations NGO, was able to meet with President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker with “no transparent agenda for their closed-door meeting”, and pointed out how EU proposals to redistribute quotas of migrants across the EU are eerily familiar to Soros’s own self-published plan for dealing with the crisis.
The billionaire financier believes that the European Union should receive millions of immigrants from the Middle East and Northern Africa, provide each one with an annual 15,000 EUR in aid, and resettle these migrants in member-states where they do not wish to go and are not necessarily welcome.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has accused the EU of “eating out of the hand” of Soros. He believes that the billionaire open borders campaigner is behind the attacks on Hungary. The reason is the government’s attempts to take legal action over a new law which requires foreign-supported ‘civil society’ organizations — many funded by Soros — to list their big overseas donors in a public register and be transparent about their funding sources in their publications.
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Bombshell Revelation of US and Saudi Culpability in Creating ISIS Ignored by Mainstream Media – and by the Team Trump
Bombshell Revelation of US and Saudi Culpability in Creating ISIS Ignored by Mainstream Media – and by the Team Trump
Here it is, right from the horse’s mouth! Qatar’s former prime minister spills his guts about how his country worked with Saudi Arabia and Turkey under the direction of the United States – meaning then the Obama Administration – to funnel arms and money to jihad terrorists in Syria:
‘The explosive interview constitutes a high level “public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda.” … Former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who oversaw Syria operations on behalf of Qatar until 2013,… said while acknowledging Gulf nations were arming jihadists in Syria with the approval and support of US and Turkey: “I don’t want to go into details but we have full documents about us taking charge [in Syria].” He claimed that both Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah (who reigned until his death in 2015) and the United States placed Qatar in a lead role concerning covert operations to execute the proxy war.
‘The former prime minister’s comments, while very revealing, were intended as a defense and excuse of Qatar’s support for terrorism, and as a critique of the US and Saudi Arabia for essentially leaving Qatar “holding the bag” in terms of the war against Assad. Al-Thani explained that Qatar continued its financing of armed insurgents in Syria while other countries eventually wound down large-scale support, which is why he lashed out at the US and the Saudis, who initially “were with us in the same trench.”’ [“In Shocking, Viral Interview, Qatar Confesses Secrets Behind Syrian War,” Zero Hedge, October 29]
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
US Boosts Special Operations Forces Presence at Russia’s Border
US Boosts Special Operations Forces Presence at Russia’s Border
The deployment of US Special Operations Forces in Europe is never in spotlight but it is rapidly increasing. There can be no other purpose than acquisition of capability to deliver strikes deep into Russia’s territory.
The Trump administration is relying heavily on Special Operations Forces (SOF). They are deployed to 137 countries or 70% of them in the world. At least 8,000 of SOF are operating in around 80 countries at any given moment. The numbers have ballooned from a few thousands in the 1980s to 70,000 at present. In 2016, the US deployed special operators to Taiwan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Laos, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan. In 2006, 3 percent of special operators deployed overseas were in Europe. In 2016, the number topped 12 percent.
Much has been said recently about SOF operations in Africa, which are going to expand and intensify. Formally, they are on train and assist missions to counter terrorist threats. But one can hardly imagine the need to deploy such special purpose forces from overseas to fight terrorists in the Old Continent.
The United States increased the presence of SOF in Europe four times last year. The forces are mainly deployed near Russia’s borders, including such countries as the Baltic States, Romania, Poland, Ukraine and Georgia. In 2017, SOF have deployed to more than 20 European countries.
In March, SOF (Army Green Berets) trained along local troops in Lapland, Finland, during exercise Northern Griffin 2017. In May, Navy SEALs were part of exercise Flaming Sword 17 in Lithuania. In June, members of the US 10th Special Forces Group trained near Lubliniec, Poland. In July, naval SOF took part in Sea Breeze annual military exercise in Ukraine.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Tillerson: US to Build Additional De-Escalation Zones in Syria
Tillerson: US to Build Additional De-Escalation Zones in Syria
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 30, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told lawmakers that the US is working to create additional de-escalation zones in Syria. The secretary did not say where exactly the zones will be built. It’s logical to assume that the top diplomat meant the southern and south-eastern parts of Syria under the control of US-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Kurdish militias.
The area accounts for about one third of the national territory with approximately 70% of hydrocarbons in Syria. Tillerson emphasized that he was not talking about demarcation zones to divide the country. He said the regime change was not the goal but the US executive will approach lawmakers for authorization to act against the government of Bashar Assad, if need be.
The secretary did not say that the plan presupposes an increase in military presence but, once established, additional zones will inevitably require more military personnel to carry the mission out. If the creation of the zones is coordinated with other actors, it won’t be Americans only. Russia, Jordanian and US militaries are controlling the de-escalation zones in the provinces of Deraa, Quneitra and As-Suwayda located in the south-western part of Syria. If Mr. Tillerson was talking about a unilateral move, then the US military presence will grow substantially, including armor units and other heavy military equipment.
The issue of setting up additional de-escalation zones was not on the agenda of the Astana talks on Syria held on October 30-31.The US was invited as an observer but nothing was said about the plan Secretary Tillerson announced to Congress. Creating de-escalation zones is never all roses. For instance, the process is not running smoothly in the province of Idlib.
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US Administration Defends Its Right to Start Wars on a Whim
US Administration Defends Its Right to Start Wars on a Whim
The US Constitution says that only Congress can declare war for an extended time but there is a workaround. Congress approved the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), giving the president the authority to track down and destroy al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The resolution stipulates that “The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” The resolution’s 2002 version gave President Bush the authority to invade Iraq. Only 25 percent of the current members of Congress in the House and Senate were present when the current AUMFs were passed.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and several other Democrats are asking whether a new law authorizing the use of military force should be written. They are planning to introduce legislation that would prohibit Trump from starting a pre-emptive war against North Korea, absent an imminent threat or without express authorization from Congress. They call for one without a sunset date, saying that Congress needs to have a voice.
The deadly incident in Niger last month ignited a push among many members of Congress to update the legal parameters for combat operations overseas. The revelation that the US is at war in Niger, without Congress even knowing, was startling. This is the perfect illustration of the US’s permanent war posture around the world, where battles are waged with little or no public scrutiny and no congressional authorization. All previous attempts to ditch the old authorization and force Congress to craft a new one have failed. For years now, Congress has abdicated its responsibility to debate and vote on US wars.
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How the US Aristocracy Deceive the US Public
How the US Aristocracy Deceive the US Public
The progressive former Democratic US Senator Ted Kaufman wrote at Forbes, on 22 July 2014:
Another year has passed with no one from a Wall Street bank going to jail for the criminal behavior everyone knows helped cause the financial crisis. Fines against Wall Street banks are reaching $100 billion, but all will be paid by stockholders. Bank CEOs and managers pay no fines and face no prison.
There has been no reform — zilch, nada — of the credit-rating agencies. They are right back rating securities from issuers who pay them for their ratings.
If you still can’t trust the credit-rating on a bond, and if Wall Street’s bigs still stand immune from the law even after the 2008 crash they had played a huge role to cause, then in what way can the US Government itself be called a ‘democracy’?
Kaufman tries to get the American public interested in overcoming the US Government’s profound top-level corruption, but few US politicians join with him on that, because only few American voters understand that a corrupt government (especially one that’s corrupt at the very top) cannot even possibly be a democratic government.
However, America’s aristocracy are even more corrupt than Wall Street itself is, and they control Wall Street, behind the scenes. And their ‘news’media are under strict control to portray America as being still a democratic country that somehow lives up to its anti-aristocratic and anti-imperialistic Founders’ intentions and Constitution. Maybe all that remains of those Founders’ intentions today is that Britain’s aristocracy no longer rules America — but America’s aristocracy now does, instead. And, this isn’t much, if any, of an improvement.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
JFK Files: Cover-Up Continues of President’s Assassination
JFK Files: Cover-Up Continues of President’s Assassination
The murder of President John F Kennedy 54 years ago has been described as the “crime of the century”. If US and Western news media cannot discuss this seminal event openly and honestly, let alone investigate it, then what does that say about their credibility?
Such systematic media denial of reality inflicts irreparable damage to their credibility. How can they be taken seriously on any other matter, whether it is claims of “Russian meddling” or about the war in Syria, or the claims justifying Washington’s aggression towards Iran and North Korea?
The astounding media denial over JFK’s assassination is a symptom of the tacit totalitarianism that passes for “Western democracy”.
The release this week of secret government papers on the killing of President Kennedy was billed as a day of revelation and reckoning. Closer to the truth is that the shocking murder of Kennedy continues to be covered-up by the US deep state.
The premise of “revelation and reckoning” is absurdly false and naive. The notion that US authorities would “finally come clean” on what happened that day in Dallas is not only flawed. It also creates the illusion that the controversy has finally been settled, thereby supposedly confirming the official version that Kennedy was assassinated by a lone malcontent, Lee Harvey Oswald.
CNN reported the release of official documents this week thus: “More than 50 years after President John F Kennedy was killed, Americans on Thursday may finally get the US government’s full accounting… to quell conspiracy theories that have long swirled around the assassination.”
The New York Times wrote: “The final trove of sealed government records to be released” will lay to rest the “grand-daddy of all conspiracy theories”.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
President Trump Confident in Missile Defense: In the Grip of Dangerous Illusion
President Trump Confident in Missile Defense: In the Grip of Dangerous Illusion
The US is pushing ahead with expansion of the nation’s homeland ballistic missile defense (BMD). The effort enjoys strong bipartisan support in Congress and among experts. Many allies place a high value on BMD cooperation with the United States. However, there are ample reasons to question the efficiency of US missile defenses, especially the capability to protect against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
“We have missiles that can knock out a missile in the air 97% of the time,” President Donald Trump said in his interview with Fox News on October 11, adding “and if you send two of them, it’s going to get knocked down.” He was talking about the threat coming from North Korea to be repelled by the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) in Alaska and California – the $40 billion project administered by the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).
The US military conducted the first-ever missile defense test involving a simulated attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile in May. The ICBM-type target was fired from the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands toward the waters just south of Alaska. The mission was to prepare for countering an intercontinental missile launched by North Korea. The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) described the test as an “incredible accomplishment”. According to Vice Admiral Jim Syring, director of the agency, “This system is vitally important to the defense of our homeland, and this test demonstrates that we have a capable, credible deterrent against a very real threat.” The assessment appears to be exaggerated as the test was not conducted in a realistic environment.
The next test of the GMD system is scheduled for late 2018 and, for the first time, will involve firing two interceptors against one ICBM target. It makes unsubstantiated the president’s affirmation that two interceptors are enough to knock out a North Korean missile as no such tests have been conducted so far.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Mutual Assured Destruction
Mutual Assured Destruction
Sometimes it is possible to read or view something that completely changes the way one looks at things. I had that experience last week when I read an article at Lobelog entitled “A Plea for Common Sense on Missile Defense,” written by Joe Cirincione, a former staffer on the House Armed Services Committee who now heads the Ploughshares Fund, which is a Washington DC based global foundation that seeks to stop the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
The article debunks much of the narrative being put out by the White House and Pentagon regarding missile defense. To be sure, it is perfectly reasonable to mistrust anything that comes out of the federal government justifying war given its track record going back to the War of 1812. And the belligerent posture of the United States towards Iran and North Korea can well be condemned based on its own merits, threatening war where there are either no real interests at stake or where a diplomatic solution has for various reasons been eschewed.
But the real reason why the White House gets away with saber rattling is historical, that the continental United States has not experienced the consequences of war since Pancho Villa invaded in 1916. This is a reality that administration after administration has exploited to do what they want when dealing with foreign nations: whatever happens “over there” will stay “over there.”
Americans consequently do not know war except as something that happens elsewhere and to foreigners, requiring only that the U.S. step in on occasion and bail things out, or screw things up depending on one’s point of view. This is why hawks like John McCain, while receiving a “Liberty” award from Joe Biden, can, with a straight face, get away with denouncing those Americans who have become tired of playing at being the world’s policeman.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Sweden, Submarines, and Propaganda
Sweden, Submarines, and Propaganda
Sweden’s most recent military cooperation with the US-NATO military alliance involved hosting armed forces of the many countries which participated in Exercise Aurora in September. As noted by Euronews, “Sweden is undertaking its biggest military exercise amid fears of Russian military build up,” and NATO headquarters announced that “In the current security context with heightened concerns about Russian military activities, NATO is stepping up cooperation with Sweden and Finland in the Baltic region.”
NATO is anxious, even desperate, to justify the existence of one of the least-needed and most confrontational military alliances of modern times. In January, before he arrived in the White House, President Trump called NATO “obsolete” but in April went into reverse and said “It’s no longer obsolete,” which was fair warning of what lay ahead in the erratic administration of the most vulgar and spiteful president the United States has ever had.
The fact remains that NATO is indeed ineffective and irrelevant (the notion of Russia invading Sweden is preposterous and, as Der Spiegel observed on October 20, “to be sure, hardly anyone really thinks that Russia might attack a NATO member state”), but its nominal leader, Jens Stoltenberg (the real chief is the US General titled “Supreme Allied Commander Europe”), has assumed the air of a national head of government and whisks expensively round the world making statements that have nothing whatever to do with NATO
One of NATO’s “concerns” in its obsession with Russia is to persuade Sweden to not only increase its already substantial collaboration with the alliance, but to actually become a member — although defence minister Peter Hultqvist is not in favour of such a commitment, in spite of having increased military spending and reintroduced conscription.
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Why GDP Is Fake
Why GDP Is Fake
Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, is the most commonly used measure and ranking of a nation’s economy. According to the OECD and Wikipedia, its definition is: “an aggregate measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production (plus any taxes, and minus any subsidies, on products not included in the value of their outputs).” No subtractions are included in it for debts that were undertaken in order to generate the given “gross values added.” A trillion dollars of increased assets (additional “gross values” of “production”) adds a trillion dollars to GDP, even if all of it was produced by increasing the debts by a trillion dollars: only the assets-side of the balance-sheet is relevant to GDP.
However, wealth is assets minus liabilities; it is assets minus debts; it is not assets alone. Therefore, a nation’s wealth has no necessary relationship at all to a nation’s GDP, because the nation’s wealth is its assets minus its liabilities, not its assets regardless of its liabilities (such as GDP is).
Britannica provides this definition of “GDP”: “Gross domestic product (GDP), total market value of the goods and services produced by a country’s economy during a specified period of time. It includes all final goods and services — that is, those that are produced by the economic agents located in that country regardless of their ownership and that are not resold in any form. It is used throughout the world as the main measure of output and economic activity.” In this definition, too, no subtractions are included in it for the debts. Britannica then goes on to state:
GDP = Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Net Exports
or more succinctly
GDP = C + I + G + NX
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