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US May Strike North Korea in November

October 24, 2017

US May Strike North Korea in November

Former US President Jimmy Carter said he would be ready to travel to North Korea for peace talks, if the administration wanted him to go on a diplomatic mission. But President Trump does not appear to be chomping at the bit to grab the opportunity for launching a diplomatic initiative.

Recent North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests suggest that the country now has the capability to hit the continental US. The CIA has assessed that North Korea’s Hwasong-14, the intercontinental ballistic missile tested twice in July, has the capability to reach the US with a nuclear payload. According to the US Defense Intelligence Agency, North Korea may well have already developed a miniaturised nuclear warhead that could be delivered on an ICBM.

The defense chiefs of South Korea, the US and Japan met on October 23 at the 4th ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) to emphasize the importance of strengthening their partnerships in maximizing pressure on North Korea.

The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier strike group arrived in Busan, South Korea, on October 21 after participating in large-scale US-South Korean naval drills. Washington and Seoul started another military exercise on October 23. The annual Courageous Channel drills are to last five days. Pyongyang sees exercises as provocative actions, just like the strategic bombers’ flights. North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho warned last month that his country reserves the right to shoot down US States strategic bombers even outside the national airspace.

US President Donald Trump said he is “totally prepared” to use military force against North Korea if necessary, in an interview with Fox News on October 22. Earlier this month, he dismissed the idea of dialogue as a “waste of time.”

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

US Targets Russian Nord Stream-2 Gas Project: Déjà Vu Story

October 23, 2017

US Targets Russian Nord Stream-2 Gas Project: Déjà Vu Story

The US Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017 contains a separate section called the Countering Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act (“CRIEEA”). CRIEEA authorizes – and at times requires – the President to impose significant new sanctions on the Russian energy, financial, and defense sectors, imperiling the completion of the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. It also hits European businesses involved in the project. The legislation can impact a potentially large number of European companies doing legitimate business under EU measures with Russian entities in the railways, financial, shipping or mining sectors, among others. Now the US punitive measures could include the pipelines crossing the territory of Ukraine, as well as pipeline projects in the Caspian region and the development of the Zohr gas field off the coast of Egypt. The law negatively affected the US relationship with European allies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the world is witnessing an increasing number of examples of politics crudely interfering with economic, market relations. In his address to the final plenary session of the 14th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club on October 19, Putin said “Some do not even conceal that they are using political pretexts to promote their strictly commercial interests. For instance, the recent package of sanctions adopted by the US Congress is openly aimed at ousting Russia from European energy markets and compelling Europe to buy more expensive US-produced LNG although the scale of its production is still too small.”

The US is striving to control the EU decision-making process. According to Washington’s logic, building a pipeline to reduce costs and raise reliability and efficiency proves that Russia is politically motivated, unlike the US with its new law adopted to pave the way for American LNG exports to Europe using coercive measures!

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

An Attack on Iran or North Korea Wouldn’t Be Putting ‘America First’

October 21, 2017

An Attack on Iran or North Korea Wouldn’t Be Putting ‘America First’

Almost every day I am asked by someone what the likelihood is that we may soon be at war with Iran or North Korea, or conceivably both. As it’s unlikely either of those countries will attack the United States since it would be suicidal, the question of war really means: are we going to attack them?

There are those who say all the tub-thumping emanating from Washington is just bluster. For example, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com writes that President Donald Trump is just engaging in “rhetorical pyrotechnics and scor[ing] political points with certain [domestic] constituencies while maintaining the status quo: in short, he gets to engage in what is essentially a theatrical performance entirely unrelated to what is actually occurring on the ground. His enemies, mistaking rhetoric for reality, have risen to the bait.”

I hope Raimondo is right but I fear otherwise. Underlying his analysis is the all-too-factual reality that attacking either country would result in catastrophe. “Millions would die, on both sides of the demilitarized zone,” if we were to move first, he writes. “For this reason, the US – despite Trump’s tweets – is not going to launch an attack on North Korea.” Similar logic applies to Iran.

Unfortunately, if a prudent assessment of costs and benefits had guided American policy in recent years, none of our other wars of choice would have taken place either – yet they did. The fact that foreseeable consequences may appear “unthinkable” to rational minds does not mean they are not regarded as quite thinkable to those making the decisions.

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

Has the American Hegemon Gone Rogue?

October 18, 2017

Has the American Hegemon Gone Rogue?

During the US electoral campaign last year people of various political convictions feared that the election of Hillary Clinton as US president might lead to a military confrontation with the Russian Federation. On the other hand, Donald Trump declared that better relations with Russia appeared to him to be in US interests. That’s the way it seemed during the electoral campaign. But you know, in the west, candidates will say a lot of things to get elected before settling into the business as usual of their predecessors. The Deep State does not allow transient politicians to make big changes which harm its interests. So Trump came into power making promises to try to improve US-Russian relations only to pursue the “same ol’, same on” policies of his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Mr. Trump did eventually meet with President Vladimir Putin for lengthy talks at the G20 summit in Germany during the summer, and the feedback afterward was positive

This was what Obama intended for he did as much as he could to tie Trump’s hands, expelling, gratuitously it appears in December 2016, Russian diplomats and confiscating Russian diplomatic properties. President Trump said he was going to “clean out the swamp” in Washington, and instead “the swamp” sucked him in up to the ears. As might have been expected, neocons quickly highjacked his presidency. Virtually the entire team he brought into the White House with him is already gone. The first to be targeted was retired General Michael Flynn who lasted only a few weeks. He was forced to resign because of allegations that he had conducted inappropriate discussions with the Russian ambassador in Washington. Mr. Trump did eventually meet with President Vladimir Putin for lengthy talks at the G20 summit in Germany during the summer, and the feedback afterward was positive. But once Trump returned to Washington, he was quickly brought back into line. He had to sign a Congressional bill imposing even moresanctions on Russia.

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

Washington: The Bleeder of the ‘Free World’

October 17, 2017

Washington: The Bleeder of the ‘Free World’

Among the many self-flattering epithets it gives itself, the US has always claimed to be the “leader of the free world”. It’s a rather patronizing notion that America views itself as a selfless protector and benefactor of its European allies and others. This fairytale depiction of the world is coming to a rude awakening as American power buffets against the reality of a multi-polar world.

Less a world leader and more like a blood-sucking leech on international relations.

We got a clear view of the contradiction in America’s narcissistic mythology with US President Donald Trump’s announcement that he was disavowing the multinational nuclear accord with Iran last Friday.

Trump didn’t axe American participation in the deal just yet, but he has put it on notice that he or the US Congress may terminate the accord over the next two months. How’s that for high-handed arrogance?

However, there was near-unanimous push back around the world to Trump’s disparagement of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which was originally signed in July 2015 by the US, Russia, China, European Union and Iran. All the signatories uniformly rebuked Trump’s attempt to undermine the deal, which is supposed to lift international economic sanctions off Iran in return for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program.

While Trump accused Iran of “multiple violations” of the accord, all the other stakeholders asserted satisfaction that Iran has in fact fully implemented its obligations to restrict uranium enrichment and weaponization of its nuclear program. The UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, also responded to Trump’s claims by reaffirming that eight consecutive monitoring reports have found Iran to be fully compliant with the JCPOA.

Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, have firmly said that the nuclear deal – which took two years to negotiate during Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House – is not for renegotiation. A point which was reiterated too by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

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

The American Century’s Final Curtain

October 16, 2017

The American Century’s Final Curtain

History will show that the United States, more than a decade after being drawn by rabid neo-conservative war hawks into costly and ill-advised conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, saw the final curtain drawn on its post-Cold War “American Century.” The inauguration of Donald Trump, who acts more like the Roman emperors Caligula or Nero than an American statesman, is hastening the final act in the Pax Americana stage play.

Crafty world leaders are using the dysfunctionality of US foreign policy to push the envelope, while America is pre-occupied with what Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called a moron, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Senator Bob Corker called a child in need of adult day care, and the North Korean government called a senile “dotard” in the Oval Office. The final chapter of the American Century has given problematic leaders like Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Saudi King Salman, and Moroccan King Mohammed VI encouragement to carry out their own agendas in the absence of America’s past framing of the geo-political map.

Trump has outsourced American policy in the Middle East primarily to Israel, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates acting as cheerleaders for the Israelis. The first clue that Trump would hand Middle East policy to Israel came with his nomination of the anti-Palestinian Zionist David Friedman as US ambassador to Israel. That was followed by Trump’s appointment of his pro-Likud son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as a special envoy to the Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, a friend of the Trump family since the 1980s, has taken advantage of a powerless State Department to annex more Israeli-occupied lands in the West Bank in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions. Netanyahu is also a close friend of Kushner and his father, Charles Kushner.

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

Magnitsky Act Comes to Canada

October 15, 2017

Magnitsky Act Comes to Canada

This is no secret that the driving force behind the lobbying anti-Russia Magnitsky Law is the former US and now British citizen and former hedge fund manager William Browder.

Alex Krainer (AK), who is also a hedge fund manager, wrote the book “The Killing of William Browder” deconstructing Browder’s narrative. Alex has kindly agreed to be interviewed for the Strategic Culture Foundation (SC) and present his opinion overall Magnitsky-Browder affair.

SC: In September Canada’s House of Commons passed its version of the Magnitsky Act by a vote of 277 to 0. Prior to that a pretty similar version of this Act passed the US Congress and the Council of Europe. What is your take on it? Can you tell us why Mr. Browder is spending so much time and money to lobby this act around the world?

AK: Indeed, Bill Browder has been remarkably prolific and efficient with his political lobbying to get these laws passed in Canada as well as through the US Congress and the Council of Europe before that. But the truly extraordinary aspect of his lobbying is that it is based on a narrative which appears very dubious, to put it politely. Browder claims that he and his Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnisky uncovered tax fraud conspiracy perpetrated by a network of corrupt Russian government officials, that Mr. Magnitsky blew the whistle on this conspiracy and that to silence him, these officials had him imprisoned and ultimately killed. Browder claims that his lobbying is a crusade for justice for Sergei Magnistky and for human rights in general. Accordingly, the sanctions imposed by the US and Canada on Russian officials allegedly responsible for Mr. Magnitsky’s plight were ostensibly motivated by human rights concerns. But that whole strange business entirely hinged on Mr. Browder’s story and next to no due diligence on the part of these western law-makers. Even a rudimentary fact-checking should have uncovered numerous problems with Mr. Browder’s narrative.

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

US Quietly Bolsters Forces in Poland Breaching Russia-NATO Deal

October 14, 2017

US Quietly Bolsters Forces in Poland Breaching Russia-NATO Deal

The US took advantage of the ballyhoo raised over the “Russian threat” allegedly posed by joint Russian-Belarusian Zapad-2017 military exercise held in September to increase its Army presence in Poland. The alliance again tried to reaffirm its bogus Russia narrative but the Zapad training event was transparent with observers invited and the forces withdrawn to home bases after it was over.

According to Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, the US 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, was meant to have rotated out of Europe with its weapons and equipment left to be manned by troops of the US 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division. Instead, the 2nd Armored Brigade had been quietly deployed to Poland (Boleslawiec, Drawsko Pomorskie, Torun, Skwierzyna, Zagan) with its own armored vehicles, while weaponry and equipment of the 3rd Brigade had remained and could be manned within 2 hours by bringing in troops from the US Ramstein Base in Germany. An armored brigade combat team comprises about 4,200 troops and includes approximately 250 tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Paladin self-propelled howitzers, plus 1,750 wheeled vehicles.

The move was taken against certain background. NATO has already deployed four multinational battalions across Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. In a separate move, the US military sent the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team along with a corresponding aviation brigade, to Gdansk on a year-round basis in September. It was the first time two armored brigades with full complement of soldiers and equipment were deployed in Europe under the pretext of supporting the exercise dubbed Operation Atlantic Resolve.

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

US Public Don’t Care if ‘News’media Lie

October 9, 2017

US Public Don’t Care if ‘News’media Lie

To say that the US public don’t care if ‘news’media lie, is shocking, but I shall here present evidence that it actually is true — not in some mere theory, but in empirical fact.

A typical example of Americans not caring about the truthfulness, nor even about the honesty, of their sources of alleged ‘news’, is that, during the period of October 3rd through the 5^th, there were two news-reports both of which were true, but which, when taken together, display the total disconnect between newsmedia-honesty, on the one hand, and the confidence that the American people have in the nation’s ‘news’media, on the other.

One of these two news-reports was published on October 5^th by the anonymous blogger who has come to be, amongst readers who closely follow and investigate the war in Syria, the most-trusted source of reporting on it, and the article was headlined, “Russia Issues Third Warning Against US Cooperation With Terrorists”, and it provided links to each of the three recent instances in which the US Government was cooperating with ISIS to defeat Syria and its defender Russia, in Syria. It summarily described the ways in which the US had been exposed (but not by US ‘news’media) as having been providing vital intelligence and other crucial assistance to ISIS, in ISIS’s efforts to overthrow and replace the existing Syrian Government (headed by Bashar al-Assad). That report should be read by anyone who proceeds further here, because it covers events that were certainly of top international importance and that might even precipitate war between the US and Russia, but which were reported little if at all in US ’news’media. Of course, it would be very bad for US ’news’media to allow the US to become involved in a nuclear war against Russia and to have hidden, from the American public, the US Government’s provocations which had produced such a war.

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

Canada to Deliver Severe Blow to Relations with Russia

October 8, 2017

Canada to Deliver Severe Blow to Relations with Russia

On June 12, 2017, Russia and Canada marked the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. The relationship has rarely been worse. The two nations spoke even at the height of the Cold War. Now there is almost no dialogue, especially since Canada joined the US and EU sanctions on Russia in 2014.

On October 4, the bilateral relationship received another heavy blow. The Canadian House of Representatives, the lower house, unanimously passed the bill (S.226) that aims to punish Russian officials said to be responsible for the death of an accountant and auditor Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009. The legislation calls for the freezing of assets and visa bans on officials from Russia and other nations considered to be “guilty of human rights violations”.

The “Law on Victims of Corrupt Foreign Government” would prevent Canadian firms from dealing with foreign nationals who are “responsible for, or complicit in, extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” The legislation aims Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Vietnam and Myanmar. The Special Economic Measures Act in force does not allow the freezing of assets of human rights violators in Canada. The Magnitsky bill would allow this.

To become law the bill will now go to the Senate for final approval and then on to Governor General Julie Payette for royal assent. “Should [the bill] be passed by the Senate and receive royal assent, it will enable Canada to sanction, impose travel bans on, and hold accountable those responsible for gross human rights violations and significant corruption,” Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said after the vote.

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

Challenging the Dollar: China and Russia’s Plan from Petroyuan to Gold

October 5, 2017

Challenging the Dollar: China and Russia’s Plan from Petroyuan to Gold

As seen in my previous article, US military power is on the decline, and the effects are palpable. In a world full of conflicts brought on by Washington, the economic and financial shifts that are occurring are for many countries a long-awaited and welcome development.

If we were to identify what uniquely fuels American imperialism and its aspirations for global hegemony, the role of the US dollar would figure prominently. An exploration of the depth of the dollar’s effects on the world economy is therefore necessary in order to understand the consequential geopolitical developments that have occurred over the last few decades.

The reason the dollar plays such an important role in the world economy is due to the following three major factors: the petrodollar; the dollar as world reserve currency; and Nixon’s decision in 1971 to no longer make the dollar convertible into gold. As is easy to guess, the petrodollar strongly influenced the composition of the SDR basket, making the dollar the world reserve currency, spelling grave implications for the global economy due to Nixon’s decision to eliminate the dollar’s convertibility into gold. Most of the problems for the rest of the world began from a combination of these three factors.

Dollar-Petrodollar-Gold

The largest geo-economic change in the last fifty years was arguably implemented in 1973 with the agreement between OPEC, Saudi Arabia and the United States to sell oil exclusively in dollars.

Specifically, Nixon arranged with Saudi King Faisal for Saudis to only accept dollars as a payment for oil and related investments, recycling billions of excess dollars into US treasury bills and other dollar-based financial resources. In exchange, Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries came under American military protection.

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

US Media: Standards Tossed Overboard

October 1, 2017

US Media: Standards Tossed Overboard

Internet development resulted in disappearance of America’s local media to benefit metropolitan mainstream outlets with large countrywide circulation. Predominantly pro-Democratic, they espouse liberal values, paying little attention to political views and everyday life problems of those who live outside megacities.

The mainstream media have lost trust of provincial America to engender the phenomenon of Trump, with public trust in mainstream media reaching its lowest level in history. The people living outside big cities trust President Trump more than media.

There were times US media served all Americans no matter where they lived, while meeting the highest journalism ethics and standards. True, outlets have always been divided to some extent between conservative and liberal camps but media were not antagonistic to each other as they are now. In the 1960s-1980s, the situation was quite different. US media were the real Fourth Estate, revealing the abuse of power and highlighting real problems the country faced.

Media contribution into the Civil Rights Act becoming a law in 1964 and ending the Vietnam War was immense. It’s enough to remember the reports of Walter Cronkite (CBS), often cited as “the most trusted man in America”, about the Vietnam war. His 1968 editorial about the United States “mired in stalemate” in Vietnam was seen by some as a turning point in the US opinion of the war. President Lyndon Johnson is claimed by some to have said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Cronkite helped broker the 1977 invitation that took Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, the breakthrough to Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.

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

Trump Is Determined to Go to War

September 28, 2017

Trump Is Determined to Go to War

On September 18 Presidents Trump and Macron met in New York and said a few words in front of the media. It was a love-fest, with Trump pouring out a honey-stream of compliments and one of his observations was that Emmanuel Macron is “doing a terrific job in France. He’s doing what has to be done. He’s respected by the French people,” which was one of his more dubious statements of recent weeks.

Some 53 per cent of French citizens disapprove of President Macron, which is exactly the same as Trump’s domestic disapproval score, so it can’t be claimed that either of them is “respected” by a majority of their country’s deeply polarised populace.

The depths of Trump ignorance are verging on the unfathomable, but it isn’t that aspect of his psychotic character that is disturbing to the point of danger for the world as a whole. The scary thing about his comments was his ecstatic enthusiasm for blasting trumpets, roaring aircraft, rumbling tanks and all the paraphernalia of martial belligerence. He said he had loved the Bastille Day parade in Paris and “we may do something like that on July 4^th in Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue… We’re going to have to try and top it… we had a lot of planes going over and we had a lot of military might, and it was really a beautiful thing to see…”

When I was a soldier I participated in many parades and still warm to bands and like to see smartly marching troops. The general public in almost every country in the world likes them, too, and there is no reason to propose that such events be curtailed. But. BUT: I have grave doubts about a national leader who is so worked up and excited about them being “a lot of military might and… really a beautiful thing to see.”

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

A Failing Empire: Russia and China’s Military Strategy to Contain the US

September 25, 2017

A Failing Empire: Russia and China’s Military Strategy to Contain the US

Looking at the global political landscape over the last month, two trends are becoming more apparent. The infamous military and economic power at America’s disposal is declining, whereas in the multipolar field, an acceleration has occurred in the creation of a series of infrastructures, mechanisms and procedures to contain and limit the negative effects of America’s declining unipolar moment. This series of three articles will focus firstly on the military aspect of these ongoing changes, then the economics at play, and finally, how and why smaller countries are transitioning from the unipolar camp to the multipolar field.

One of the most tangible consequences of the decline of US military power can be observed in the Syrian conflict. Over the past few weeks, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies have completed the historic and strategic liberation of Deir ez-Zor, a city besieged for more than five years by Islamists belonging to Al Qaeda and Daesh. The focus has now shifted to the oilfields south of the liberated city, with a frantic rush by both the US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the SAA to free territories still held by Daesh. The final goal is to claim Syria’s resources and strengthen a weak US position (the US is not even part of the Astana peace talks) in future negotiations concerning the country’s future. To understand how much the US dream of partitioning Syria is failing, one only need note repeated US failures as seen in the liberation of Aleppo and then Deir Ez-Zor, and now the crossing of the Euphrates river. In spite of American intimidation, threats, and sometimes even direct aggression, the Syrian army continued to work against Daesh in the province of Deir Ez-Zor, advancing on oil rich sites.

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

People Ignore Facts That Contradict Their False Beliefs

September 24, 2017

People Ignore Facts That Contradict Their False Beliefs

The more people there are who ignore facts that contradict their beliefs, the likelier a dictatorship will emerge within a given country. Here is how aristocracies, throughout the Ages, have controlled the masses, by taking advantage of this widespread tendency people have, to ignore contrary facts:

What social scientists call “confirmation bias” and have repeatedly found to be rampant,* is causing the public to be easily manipulated, and has thus destroyed democracy by replacing news-reporting, by propaganda — ‘news’ that’s false — in a culture where lies which pump the agendas of the powerful (including lies pumped by the billionaire owners of top ‘news’media and of the media they own) are almost never punished (and are often not even denied to be true). Thus, lies by those powerful liars almost always succeed at enslaving the minds of the millions, to believe what the top economic-and-power class want those millions of people to believe — no matter how false it might happen actually to be.

Recently, a particularly stark example of this came to my attention. On 15 September 2017, an article that I wrote for the Strategic Culture Foundation, and which was titled by a true statement that I had only recently discovered to be true, was republished at a news-site that I consider one of the best around, “Signs of the Times” or “SOTT” for short, and a reader-comment there, simply rejected that title-statement and the entire article, because it contradicted what the person believes. This commenter entirely ignored the evidence that I had provided in the article, which proved the statement to be true.

No matter how irrefutable the evidence is, most people reject anything which contradicts their deeply entrenched false beliefs, and this reader-comment crystallized for me, this phenomenon of “confirmation bias” — the phenomenon of ignoring evidence that contradicts what one believes.

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

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