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NBC’S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL
NBC’S CONDUCT IN ENGEL KIDNAPPING STORY IS MORE TROUBLING THAN THE BRIAN WILLIAMS SCANDAL
Throughout 2012, numerous American factions were pushing for U.S. intervention in Syria to bring down the regime of Bashar Assad, who throughout the War on Terror had helped the U.S. in all sorts of ways, including torturing people for them. But by then, Assad was viewed mostly as an ally of Iran, and deposing him would weaken Tehran, the overarching regional strategy of the U.S. and its allies. The prevailing narrative was thus created that those fighting against Assad were “moderate” and even pro-Western groups, with the leading one dubbed “the Free Syrian Army.”
Whether to intervene in Syria in alliance with or on behalf of the “Free Syrian Army” was a major debate in the West through the end of that year. Then-Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry was openly discussing ways for the U.S. to aid the rebels to bring about regime change. Sen. Joe Lieberman was saying: “I hope the international community and the U.S. will provide assistance to the Syrian Free Army in the various ways we can.” Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while ruling out direct military intervention, said: “[W]e have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people’s right to have a better future.”
A U.N. resolution calling for Assad to step down was supported by NATO states but vetoed by China and Russia, who were concerned that it would be depicted as a “regime change” endorsement to justify Western military intervention. By the following year, John Kerry, by then Obama’s secretary of state, was arguing that direct U.S. military action in Syria against Assad — a full-scale bombing campaign — was a moral and strategic imperative.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
No Longer Quiet on the Eastern Front (Part 3)
No Longer Quiet on the Eastern Front (Part 3)
Writing a short series of articles about geopolitics carries some risks – namely, that current events can unfold faster than I can hit the ‘send’ button on my next edition. It appears that I am releasing this missive in the nick of time, as the coming days promise more dramatic developments in the Greek economic crisis and, of particular interest, that country’s growing closeness with Russia.
Let us quickly review what has been covered thus far in this series. In part one, we focused on economic tensions between the European Union and Greece, and how the past five years of austerity and hardship may compel the new Greek government to seek stronger ties with Russia. Part two reviewed last year’s disintegration of Ukraine, and the chain of events that sparked its ongoing civil war.
Civil unrest in Kiev. Photo courtesy: The Times of London
In this final segment, we will attempt to view both of these conflicts from the Russian perspective, and to provide some insight into (if not a defense of) the Greek point of view. I do not consider myself to be a “Kremlinologist”, or even an expert on Russian political affairs. That being said, I do believe that I can offer a relatively informed perspective that comes from living in both Athens and Moscow over the past ten years, at times when both countries were facing economic crises. I also believe that mainstream Western media outlets have thoroughly and utterly failed in their duty to provide a balanced perspective on the causes behind the growing chasm between Russia and the West.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russian Fighter Jet Gives US Recon Airplane “Top Gun”-Style Interception
Russian Fighter Jet Gives US Recon Airplane “Top Gun”-Style Interception
Over the past year, NATO has flooded the media with over 100 reports of its aircraft intercepting Russian spy and warplanes over neutral territory which supposedly were getting too close to native soil for comfort and in urgent need of an escort. Last week, however, the roles were reversed when a US RC-135U reconnaissance aircraft was intercepted in very close proximity by a Russian Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jet over the Baltic Sea near Russia’s Kaliningrad Region.
The Pentagon promptly accused the Russian pilot of coming dangerously close to the US aircraft.
“On the morning of April 7th, a U.S. RC-135U flying a routine route in international airspace was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 Flanker in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Eileen M. Lainez.
“The United States is raising this incident with Russia in the appropriate diplomatic and official channels,” she said in a statement.
A defense official said the Russian fighter jet flew within 20 feet of the unarmed reconnaissance jet in what the official called a “reckless” encounter that endangered the lives of the RC-135 crew.
The official said that a Russian Su-27 passed within 6 meters meters of the unarmed reconnaissance aircraft; by comparison the Sukhoi’s wingspan is just under 15 meters.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Germany Orders 100 Tanks To “Ensure Troops Are Ready To Respond To Russian Assertiveness”
Germany Orders 100 Tanks To “Ensure Troops Are Ready To Respond To Russian Assertiveness”
With Jean-Claude Juncker demanding a Unified European Army, it appears Germany is wasting no time in simultaneously boosting its own economy with warfare spending and comforting a ‘fearful populace’ with more military might. As Reuters reports, Germany plans to procure more than 100 additional Leopard 2 tanks, increasing its total Leopard 2 tank inventory by a whopping 45% a government spokesman said on Friday, as it seeks to ensure its “troops are ready for action in response to concerns over recent Russian assertiveness.”
Germany plans to procure more than 100 additional Leopard 2 tanks, a government spokesman said on Friday, as it seeks to ensure its troops are ready for action in response to concerns over recent Russian assertiveness.The decision to restock its military comes as NATO tries to hasten the response time of its rapid reaction force following Russia’s annexation of Crimea last year and conflict in Ukraine.
“The ministry has decided to raise the upper limit for the future to 328,” a defense ministry spokesman told a regular government news conference on Friday, confirming a report by German magazine Spiegel.
Just before the end of the Cold War, in the 1980s, the then West Germany had more than 3,500 tanks. Now, seventy years after World War Two, it has just 225. As a result soldiers have to share tanks and heavy equipment across different units.
Given NATO’s new goals on flexibility and rapid reaction time,Germany has to ensure that it can deploy troops with the correct equipment to the right place in a short period of time, the spokesman said. “This can only succeed if the equipment does not need to be first moved around through the country,” he said.
The Leopard tanks are made by Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW).
So harbinger of S&P algos euphoria-inducing WWIII? Or just another Keynesian public works spending project?
NATO Conducts First Test Of “Russia Rapid Response Force”
NATO Conducts First Test Of “Russia Rapid Response Force”
As Russia decries Washington’s “anti-Russian” foreign policy and alleged efforts by the US to undermine the global nuclear power balance — and as Congress and NATO do their best to confirm Moscow’s fears by voting to provide lethal aid to Kiev and by conducting military exercises along the Russian border, respectively —NATO is now set to test a new “Very High Readiness Joint Task Force,” which will see soldiers from the Czech army ready for deployment within two days. The latest NATO sabre rattling also involves German and Dutch forces and, as APreports, is set to ramp up in the coming months:
NATO is completing a first testing of its new force created to face new challenges from Russia.Some 150 soldiers from the Czech army’s 43rd airborne battalion have been training to be ready for deployment within 48 hours “as NATO reevaluates the risks,” Maj. Gen. Jiri Baloun said Thursday. The previous NATO standard times for that were between 10 and 80 days, Baloun said.
In the Netherlands, 900 German and 200 Dutch soldiers have been doing the same. The units will be moved for further trials to Poland in June while some 25,000 NATO troops will complete the exercise of the new force in Italy, Portugal and Spain in October and November.
The units belong to NATO’s new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force.
And here’s what NATO itself has to say about the endeavor:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
NATO is Building Up for War
NATO is Building Up for War
The German city of Frankfurt is continental Europe’s largest financial center and host to the country’s Stock Exchange, countless other financial institutions, and the headquarters of the European Central Bank (ECB) which is responsible for administering the monetary policy of the 18-nation Eurozone. The place is awash with money, as demonstrated by the plush new ECB office building which is costing a fortune.
The original price of the bank’s enormous palace was supposed to be 500 million euros, about 550 million dollars, but the bill has now been admitted as €1.3 billion (£930 m; $1.4 bn). This absurdly over-expensive fiasco was directed by the people who are supposed to steer the financial courses of 18 nations and their half billion unfortunate citizens. If the ECB displays similar skill sets in looking after Europe’s money as it has in controlling the cost of constructing its huge twin-tower headquarters, then Europe is in for a rocky time.
Intriguingly, the Bank isn’t alone in contributing to Europe’s bureaucratic building boom. There is another Europe-based organization of equal ambition, pomposity and incompetence which is building a majestically expensive and luxurious headquarters with a mammoth cost overrun about which it is keeping very quiet indeed.
The perpetrator of this embarrassing farce is NATO, the US-Canada-European North Atlantic Treaty Organization which is limping out of Afghanistan licking its wounds, having been fighting a bunch of sandal-wearing rag-clad amateur irregulars who gave the hi-tech forces of the West a very hard time in a war whose outcome was predictable.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Putin Says Attempts To Tip Nuclear Balance Don’t Scare Russia, Moscow Will Uncover “Schemes”
Putin Says Attempts To Tip Nuclear Balance Don’t Scare Russia, Moscow Will Uncover “Schemes”
Russia is once again ratcheting up the rhetoric, this time to a fever pitch. Just a day after Putin’s Security Council posted a remarkably accurate and amusingly concise assessment of US foreign policy aims on its website, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry as well as President Putin himself are out with strong condemnations of both the NATO presence in Eastern Europe as well as US plans to arm Kiev.
The comments come on the heels of a House vote which showed overwhelming support for the provision of lethal aid to Kiev and just a day after the first batch of American humvees received a warm welcome from President Petro Poroshenko. As a reminder, here’s what both sides had to say about Congress’s willingness to maybe start an all out proxy war in the Baltics:
The prepackaged spin is already ready: “sending weapons to the Kiev government would not mean involvement in a new war for America”, claimed the abovementioned Eliot Engel who sponsored the document. “The people of Ukraine are not looking for American troops,” Engel said. “They are just looking for the weapons.”So the only question is how Russia will responds to this escalation: according to RT,“Washington’s decision to supply Ukraine with ammunition and weapons would “explode the whole situation” in eastern Ukraine and Russia would be forced to respond “appropriately,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said at the end of February.
While it’s not immediately clear what constitutes an “appropriate” response, and while the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Alexander Lukashevich contends that an outright military confrontation between the West and Russia “isn’t something anyone wants,” that’s where the ambiguity and niceties end. Here’s more via Bloomberg:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Lithuanians Under Police State Attack: and the world under Washington’s attack
Lithuanians Under Police State Attack: and the world under Washington’s attack
According to news reports https://ltnacionalistas.wordpress.com/angliskai/lithuanian-government-intensifies-persecutions-against-anti-imperialist-activists/ and to this appeal by Kristoferis Voishkahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6MDj2uvyLk
the pro-American government installed in Lithuania is persecuting Lithuanians who dissent from the anti-Russian propaganda that is driving Washington’s NATO puppets to war with Russia. Unlike their puppet government, Lithuanians understand that war with Russia means that Lithuania on the front line will be utterly destroyed, a result that would not bother Washington in the least, just as Washington is undisturbed when its forces obliterate weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games.
What is Lithuania? To Washington it is a nothing.
Kristoferis Voiska runs an alternative Internet news site in LIthuania. Not long ago he interviewed me, and the interview appeared in both LIthuanian newspapers and on his Internet news program in video form. I found him to be sincere and well informed. I advised him that interviewing me would bring trouble for him, and he already was aware of that.
As I have said so many times, Americans are the worst informed people on the planet.
The are unaware of the growing momentum toward war with Russia. The presstitute media throughout Europe, especially in the Baltic states and Poland, is hard at work creating in people’s minds the fear of a Russian invasion. The orchestrated fear then provides the basis for the American puppet governments to beg troops and tanks and missiles from Washington, and the US military/security complex, counting its profits, is pleased to comply.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Putin Security Council Slams Obama Attempts At “New World Order”
Putin Security Council Slams Obama Attempts At “New World Order”
Moscow — which may or may not have to nuke Denmark — says the US has adopted a national security strategy that is decidedly anti-Russian. Although attempts to prove how “isolated” Putin truly is on the geopolitical stage haven’t fared very well of late (what with Russian bombers refueling at former U.S. air bases and Putin plotting Eurasian currency unions) and although Washington’s experience with China’s AIIB membership drive seems to indicate it may be the US that is in fact isolated, The Kremlin doesn’t think The White House is likely to give up on its attempts to ostracize Russia any time soon.
From a Russian Security Council statement entitled “About The US National Security Strategy“:
In the long term, the United States, in cooperation with its allies will continue the policy of political and economic isolation of Russia, including limiting its ability to export energy and the displacement of all markets for military products, while making it difficult for the production of high-tech products in Russia.
Putin’s security council then proceeds to deliver a remarkably accurate description of Washington’s foreign policy aims including the desire to show off NATO military capabilities (on full display along the Russian border currently), installing puppet governments and propping them up with financial and military support (which is precisely what’s going on now in Ukraine as the US is set to provide military assistance and also financial assistance via a Ukrainian bond issue back by the full faith and credit of the US government), and preserving US hegemony by taking unilateral action across the globe at Washington’s behest (something the US does all the time):
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The new order emerges
The new order emerges
China and Russia have taken the lead in establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), seen as a rival organisation to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which are dominated by the United States with Europe and Japan.
These banks do business at the behest of the old Bretton Woods* order. The AIIB will dance to China and Russia’s tune instead.
The geopolitical importance was immediately evident from the US’s negative reaction to the UK’s announcement this week that it would join the AIIB. And very shortly afterwards France, Germany and Italy also defied the US and announced they might join. In the Pacific region, one of America’s closest allies, Australia, says she is considering joining too along with New Zealand. The list of US allies seeking to join is growing. From a geopolitical point of view China and Russia have completely outmanoeuvred the US, splitting both NATO and America’s Pacific alliances right down the middle.
This is much more important than political commentators generally realise. We must appreciate that anything China does is planned well in advance. Here is the relevant sequence of events:
• In 2002 China and Russia formally adopted the founding charter for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, an economic bloc that today contains about 35% of the world’s population, which will become more than 50% when India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Mongolia join, which is their stated intention. Russia has the resources and China the manufacturing power to develop the largest internal market ever seen.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
That Moron Who Spews Garbage and Doesn’t Listen to Reason May Be a Bot
That Moron Who Spews Garbage and Doesn’t Listen to Reason May Be a Bot
Rampant Disinformation
NATO has announced that it is launching an “information war” against Russia.
The UK publicly announced a battalion of keyboard warriors to spread disinformation.
It’s well-documented that the West has long used false propaganda to sway public opinion.
Western military and intelligence services manipulate social media to counter criticism of Western policies.
Such manipulation includes flooding social media with comments supporting the government and large corporations, using armies of sock puppets, i.e. fake social media identities. See this, this, this, this andthis.
In 2013, the American Congress repealed the formal ban against the deployment of propaganda against U.S. citizens living on American soil. So there’s even less to constrain propaganda than before.
Information warfare for propaganda purposes also includes:
- The Pentagon, Federal Reserve and other government entities using software to track discussion of political issues … to try to nip dissent in the bud before it goes viral
- “Controlling, infiltrating, manipulating and warping” online discourse
- Use of artificial intelligence programs to try to predict how people will react to propaganda
Automated Propaganda
Some of the propaganda is spread by software programs.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Top Russia Scholar Stephen Cohen: War between NATO and Russia a Real Possibility
Top Russia Scholar Stephen Cohen: War between NATO and Russia a Real Possibility
Professor Stephen Cohen is one of the most respected authorities on Russia among American and Western scholars. He is an American scholar of Russian studies atPrinceton University and New York University. His academic work concentrates on modern Russian history and Russia’s relationship with the United States.
The key points of Cohen’s extraordinary speech:
- The possibility of premeditated war with Russia is real; this was never a possibility during Soviet times.
- This problem did not begin in November 2013 or in 2008, this problem began in 1990’s when the Clinton administration adopted a “winner-takes-all” policy towards post-Soviet Russia.
- Next to NATO expansion, the US adopted a form of a negotiation policy called “selective cooperation” – Russia gives, the US takes.
- There is not a single example of any major concession or reciprocal agreement that the US offered Russia in return for what it has received since the 90s.
- This policy has been pursued by every president and every US Congress, from President Clinton to President Obama.
- The US is entitled to a global sphere of influence, but Russia is not entitled to any sphere of influence at all, not even in Georgia or Ukraine.
- For 20 years Russia was excluded from the European security system. NATO expansion was a pivot of this security system and it was directed against Russia.
- Putin started as a pro-Western leader, he wanted partnership with the US, provided helping hand after 9/11 and saved many American lives in Afghanistan.
- In return he got more NATO expansion and unilateral abolition of the existing missile treaty on which all Russian security was based.
- Putin is not an autocrat, he’s maybe very authoritarian as an ultimate decider, but he is answerable to other power groups.
- Putin is not anti-Western, or as Khodorkovsky said, he is more European than 99 percent of Russians. He has become less pro-Western and particularly less pro-American.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
NATO Launches “Wide-Scale” War Games Near Russian Border, Creates “Line Of Troops”
NATO Launches “Wide-Scale” War Games Near Russian Border, Creates “Line Of Troops”
Washington looks to be throwing more than the full faith and credit of the US government behind Ukraine. On the heels of news that the US is set to guarantee a Ukrainian international bond issue (while Greek pensioners implicitly subsidize the country’s natural gas exports), NATO is in the midst of conducting large scale military maneuvers along the Russian border in a move Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says encourages “Kiev to pursue a military solution.”Over the course of 10 days, NATO will parade 120 combat vehicles across the region in an effort to prove how quickly the West can confront perceived Russian aggression. Here’s more from Military News:
The [Russian] ministry warned that it hopes Europe “does see the risk of unconditionally following advice from U.S. generals and will not opt for approaches that will rule out the risk of a slide towards a military confrontation between Russia and NATO.”While the U.S. Army acknowledges the convoy’s movement is “a highly visible demonstration of U.S. commitment to its NATO allies,” Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, the commander of U.S. Army Europe, insists “the focus should be on what is the desired end state, and can we get there using diplomatic and economic pressure and support.”
So basically, the US is saying the following: “…although we’re intent on showing just how quickly we can deploy our forces in the event an armed confrontation becomes necessary, we hope you’ll see this for what it is which is our best effort demonstrate that we long for a peaceful solution.” We’ll let you judge for yourself how committed the West is to a peaceful resolution (note the US soldier teaching the small child how to fire a high caliber weapon):
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia Under Attack
Russia Under Attack
While Washington works assiduously to undermine the Minsk agreement that German chancellor Merkel and French president Hollande achieved in order to halt the military conflict in Ukraine, Washington has sent Victoria Nuland to Armenia to organize a “color revolution” or coup there, has sent Richard Miles as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan to do the same there, and has sent Pamela Spratlen as ambassador to Uzbekistan to purchase that government’s allegiance away from Russia. The result would be to break up the Collective Security Treaty Organization and present Russia and China with destabilization where they can least afford it. For details go here: http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/18/4656
Thus, Russia faces the renewal of conflict in Ukraine simultaneously with three more Ukraine-type situations along its Asian border.
And this is only the beginning of the pressure that Washington is mounting on Russia.
On March 18 the Secretary General of NATO denounced the peace settlement between Russia and Georgia that ended Georgia’s military assault on South Ossetia. The NATO Secretary General said that NATO rejects the settlement because it “hampers ongoing efforts by the international community to strengthen security and stability in the region.” Look closely at this statement. It defines the “international community” as Washington’s NATO puppet states, and it defines strengthening security and stability as removing buffers between Russia and Georgia so that Washington can position military bases in Georgia directly on Russia’s border.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Washington Retaliates: Shifts Anti-Missile Battery Into Poland, Begins Rapid-Response Drills
Washington Retaliates: Shifts Anti-Missile Battery Into Poland, Begins Rapid-Response Drills
In yet another sign that Washington is keen on preserving the sanctity of sovereign nations’ right to choose peaceful democracy over violent tyranny, the US is set to use Poland as a staging ground in an effort to prove (because some folks weren’t sure) that despite the UK’s inexplicable reluctance to engage in an arms race with Russia and China, the US can still blow things up at the drop of a dime. Here’s The State Dept with more:
This week the U.S. Army deployed to Poland about 30 vehicles and 100 troops from the 5th Battalion/7th Air Defense Regiment, based in Germany. The U.S. soldiers will train for several days with Polish troops from the 37th Missile Squadron of Air Defense, the 38th Support Squadron, and the 3rd Brigade of Air Defense Command.The American forces will set up their Patriot air and missile defense assets in Poland to demonstrate the U.S. Army’s capacity to deploy Patriot systems rapidly within NATO territory. Training elements will include defending high value assets, ground forces, and population areas from ballistic missiles and air strikes.
Yes, “rapid deployment” of missiles systems. This makes a lot of sense because as we explained yesterday, Vladimir Putin (fresh from an as yet unexplained media hiatus), is busy conducting “snap combat readiness drills” in territories which the Kremlin hasSantander-Consumer-style repossessed. But that’s certainly not the only reason for the White House’s move to ratchet up its Eastern European war readiness. As we noted on Monday, Moscow recently made it clear that it isn’t afraid to instigate a nuclear holocaust if it means defending Russia’s natural right to annex a peninsula:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
