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There’s Brussels And Then There’s Real People
There’s Brussels And Then There’s Real People
Once again, a look at Greece and the Troika, because it amuses me, it angers me, and also because it warms my cockles, in an entirely metaphorical sort of way. The Troika members love to make it appear (and everyone swallows it whole) as if in their ‘negotiations’ with Greece all sorts of things are cast in stone and have no flexibility at all. Humbug.
First, another great piece by Rob Parenteau (via Yves Smith), who lays it out in terms so simple they can’t but hit the issue square on the nose. For Europe and the Troika, there’s Greece, and then there’s the rest. No money for the Greeks lining up at soupkitchens (not even for the soupkitchens themselves), but $60 billion a month for the bond market. The $200 million anti-poverty law – a measly sum in comparison – that Athens voted in this week is a no-no because Greek government has to ask permission for everything in Brussels first, says Brussels, no matter that that only prolongs the suffering. It’s not about money, in other words, it’s about power, and the Greeks must be subdued.
Both the financial and the political press have by now perfected their picture of Yanis Varoufakis as a combination of some kind of incompetent blunderer on the one hand, and a threat the size of Vladimir Putin on the other, while the rudeness of German FinMin Schäuble is not discussed at all. The media are no longer capable of reporting anything outside of their propaganda models. The ‘middle finger’ video turns out to be a fake, but who cares, it’s done its damage. Parenteau:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Obama’s Double-Standard on Russia
Obama’s Double-Standard on Russia
He Attacks Russia, then Condemn’s Putin for Defending Russia from His Attack
Ukraine is considered by geostrategists (both Republican and Democratic) to be militarily the most important adjoining nation to Russia, serving as the chief buffer to attacks against Russia from the west. Since 1783, Russia has had its key Black Sea naval base located in Crimea, which used to be part of Russia 1783-1954; the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev blithely donated Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, though the residents in Crimea didn’t want that — and no referendum was taken on it. After the Soviet Union broke up in 1992, this naval base continued but instead on a long-term lease from Ukraine.
For Ukraine to become anti-Russian would be like for Mexico to become anti-American: even worse than when Cuba became anti-American in 1959. Mexico, of course, isn’t anti-American, but, during Barack Obama’s second term, Ukraine did, indeed, become anti-Russian. It happened not via any democratic revolution (such as American propaganda pretended), but via a bloody coup. Here is how it transpired:
After Mr. Obama (who had been raised surrounded by CIA operatives) finally became elected to a second term, he switched his key official controlling Ukrainian policy from the benign internationalist Philip Gordon, who considered America’s chief enemy to be global jihadism, to the hard-right America-supremacist Victoria Nuland, who considers America’s chief enemy to be instead the nation of Russia.
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Russia Escalates Military Posture: Deploys Strategic Bombers To Crimea, Launches Massive Drills Across Nation
Russia Escalates Military Posture: Deploys Strategic Bombers To Crimea, Launches Massive Drills Across Nation
All those who were wondering where Putin had “disappeared” to, and spreading rumors whether it was more likely his girlfriend had given birth in Switzerland or aliens had abducted him, will probably be satisfied if he were to promptly disappear once more following news that not only yesterday had he put 40,000 troops on full alert as part of “snap-readiness exercises”, but less than 24 hours followed this up with even more demonstrative military “drills” afterSputnik reported that Russian strategic Tu-22M3 (Backfire) strike bombers have been deployed to the Crimean Peninsula to hold snap combat readiness drills, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday, in addition to further massive troops and equipment deployment tests in the western part of the nation as well as around the Arctic circle.
As a reminder, Crimea was recently in the news following a weekend report citing Putin that he was ready to use nukes to secure the recently repossessed peninsula. So one can perhaps look at this as de-escalation.
“During the snap combat readiness drills by the Armed Forces, strategic Tu-22M3s will be deployed to Crimea,” the source said.
Then, perhaps to counter the build of NATO troops in the Baltics, Russia also deployed fighters and bombers to the country’s western exclave of Kaliningrad for snap combat readiness exercises, a source in the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
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Putin Warns “We Were Ready” To Use Nukes To Secure Crimea
Putin Warns “We Were Ready” To Use Nukes To Secure Crimea
Having re-emerged from his hibernation, Vladimir Putin is wasting no time getting back to business. Having paced 40,000 troops on “snap-readiness,” AP reports that a documentary which aired last night shows Putin explaining that Russia was ready to bring its nuclear weapons into a state of alert during last year’s tensions over the Crimean Peninsula and the overthrow of Ukraine’s president, and admitted well-armed forces in unmarked uniforms who took control of Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea were Russian soldiers. In the documentary, which marks a year since the referendum, Putin says of the nuclear preparedness, “We were ready to do this … (Crimea) is our historical territory. Russian people live there. They were in danger. We cannot abandon them.”
Russia was ready to bring its nuclear weapons into a state of alert during last year’s tensions over the Crimean Peninsula and the overthrow of Ukraine’s president, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks aired on Sunday.Putin also expanded on a previous admission that the well-armed forces in unmarked uniforms who took control of Ukrainian military facilities in Crimea were Russian soldiers.
Putin’s comments, in a documentary being shown on state TV,highlight the extent to which alarm spread in Russia in the weeks following Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014 after months of street protests that turned increasingly violent.
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Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yatsenyuk Declares War on Russia
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yatsenyuk Declares War on Russia
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who on 4 February 2014 was selected for his post by Victoria Nuland of the U.S. State Department, was quoted by Ukrainian media on Thursday March 12th of 2015 as saying that, “Ukraine is in a state of war with a nuclear state, which is the Russian Federation. Hostile countries over the past decade have spent billions of dollars rearming it.”
His quoted statement went on to blame Ukraine’s problems on Russia: “The country [Ukraine] is billions of dollars in debt, having been a corrupt and demoralized nation that has no gas in storage and no dollars to buy it. … [Russia] destroyed 20% of Ukraine’s economy, bombed the mines in the fighting, and produced a million displaced persons, who, as a result are forced to leave their homes.” [NOTE: Those bombs, some of which were firebombs, actually fell from Ukrainian Air Force planes, and were supplemented by Ukrainian Army missiles. The resident forces in the rebel area of the southeast that the Ukrainian Government is fighting against had no air force at all until recently, and very little even now. And, of course, any “rearming” of Russia is being done by Russia, not by “Hostile countries over the past decade.”]
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Special Report: Is It Time To Prepare For War?
Special Report: Is It Time To Prepare For War?
From my perspective, the made-for-public Western news copy regarding Ukraine and Russia is childishly slanted and one-sided. The level of so-called aggression by Russia cannot even remotely be compared to the United States’ naked aggression against Iraq – a country that had not attacked the US, threatened the US, or had any WMD program (which even if it did, would still have not constituted a legitimate reason for invasion by another nation under existing international law.)
So there’s a heavy dose of “Do as we say, not as we do” when it comes to US pronouncements of ‘unacceptable aggression’ on the part of Russia. Predictably, Russia is less than pleased — as in the way they would be if routinely lectured in the press by Captain Hazelwood on the importance of boating safety.
Despite Western claims, it is highly unlikely Russia has yet moved heavy equipment and troop concentrations across the Ukraine border — because if they had, you’d for sure have seen pictures. Endless pictures of those troops and equipment on TV, morning, noon and night. You haven’t seen any pictures, so none likely exist, which means no Russian army troops or military armaments are yet in Ukraine.
But that has not stopped the US and NATO from accusing Russia of exactly those transgressions in nearly every single announcement and press release.
The latest hawkish salvo by General Breedlove was so over-the-top that Germany expressed public alarm:
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US Sends Over 100 US Tanks, Armor To Latvia As Nuland “Confirms” Russia Delivering Weapons
US Sends Over 100 US Tanks, Armor To Latvia As Nuland “Confirms” Russia Delivering Weapons
No lesser trustworthy character than Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland explained this morning that the US can “confirm” new Russian weapons delivery to Ukraine and that they “can tell” when Russia sends in new weapons (though offering no explanation of this statement). This comment to the Senate Committee comes a day after the US delivered ‘lethal aid’ to Latvia – 120 armored units (including tanks) – with US Army General John O’Conner who witnessed the tanks arriving on Latvian soil said, “Freedom must be fought for, freedom must be defended.” And finally, one more shot in the eye of the germans, deputy under-secretary of Defense Brian McKeon said the US is “actively considering more weapons for Ukraine,” seemingly implying they alreadt sent some?
The rhetoric is heating up
- *ASSISTANT SEC. OF STATE NULAND SPEAKS BEFORE SENATE COMMITTEE
- *U.S. CAN CONFIRM NEW RUSSIAN WEAPONS DELIVERY TO UKRAINE:NULAND
- *NULAND SAYS U.S. CAN TELL IF RUSSIA SENDS IN NEW WEAPONS
- *NULAND SAYS UKRAINE LEADERS KNOW IN RACE TO REFORM GOVERNMENT
- *DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE BRIAN MCKEON SPEAKS TO SENATE
- *U.S. ‘ACTIVELY’ CONSIDERING MORE WEAPONS FOR UKRAINE: MCKEON
And this comes a day after the US delivered lethal aid to Latvia…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The REAL Reasons We’re At War With Russia
The REAL Reasons We’re At War With Russia
The Empire Doesn’t Like to Be Questioned
We’re at war with Russia.
Specifically, we’ve launched:
- A sanctions war
- A currency war
- A hot war in Ukraine
Indeed, it appears that U.S. leaders have targeted Putin for regime change.
Why?
Syria
Initially, the U.S. targeted Syria for regime change – for the second time – many decades ago.
Putin derailed the imminent American war against Syria by brokering a deal wherein Syria destroyed all of its chemical weapons. The U.S. was very unhappy with the deal … and tried to backtrack.
George Friedman – CEO and founder and CEO of Stratfor, the “private CIA” – said in December that the United States is behind the coup in Kiev … which he called the “most blatant coup in history”. Friedman said that the coup came in response to Russia’s peacemaking in Syria:
[Friedman:] Russia had begun to take certain steps that the United States considered unacceptable. Primarily in Syria. It was there that Russians demonstrated to the Americans that they are capable of influencing processes in the Middle East. And the US has enough problems in that part of the world already without the Russians.
Russians intervened in the process in the Middle East among other reasons because they had hoped to get leverage to influence US policy in other areas. But they miscalculated. The United States thought that it was Russia’s intent to harm them.
***
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The Origin of the ‘New Cold War’
The Origin of the ‘New Cold War’
This will be history, replacing myth. So: if at the start it might seem unbelievable, I request the reader — please click onto the sources; and, as you read them, you will (if you have been getting your ‘news’ from the popular mainstream and ‘alternative’ ‘news’ sources) experience the replacement of myth by actual history. The world in our time will come directly alive via the most-reliable sources that exist; and it clearly contradicts, it disproves, the widespread myth that has been projected from the ‘news.’
To start with: the ‘new Cold War,’ against Russia, is something of a misnomer, because it differs from the original version, against the U.S.S.R., in that it’s already a hot war, which started in Ukraine as being the key proxy-state for the American Government’s chief foreign-policy aim, of defeating Russia; and it’s a war that is very bloody, and widely lied-about in both the U.S. and Europe, but that is discussed in Russia as if it were somehow the result of mere errors by Western powers, when in fact all of the Western leaders knew from the get-go that this was intended to be a lynching of Russia by Uncle Sam, and when the EU have been going along with this aim because the U.S. aristocracy supposedly have the interests of European aristocrats in mind and not only their own: it’s ‘the Western Alliance,’ after all.
But it’s not ‘the Western Alliance,’ really. It’s instead a gangland war by aristocrats on the global stage, and it’s threatening to become the hottest war that ever was.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Revanchism and russophobia: the dark undercurrents of the war in the Ukraine
Revanchism and russophobia: the dark undercurrents of the war in the Ukraine
The situation in the Ukraine is more or less calm right now, and this might be the time to step back from the flow of daily reports and look at the deeper, underlying currents. The question I want to raise today is one I will readily admit not having an answer to. What I want to ask is this: could it be that one of the key factors motivating the West’s apparently illogical and self-defeating desire to constantly confront Russia is simply revanchism for WWII?
We are, of course, talking about perceptions here so it is hard to establish anything for sure, but I wonder if the Stalin’s victory against Hitler was really perceived as such by the western elites, or if it was perceived as a victory against somebody FDR could also have called “our son of a bitch“. After all, there is plenty of evidence that both the US and the UK were key backers of Hitler’s rise to power (read Starikov about that) and that most (continental) Europeans were rather sympathetic to Herr Hitler. Then, of course and as it often happens, Hitler turned against his masters or, at least, his supporters, and they had to fight against him. But there is strictly nothing new about that. This is also what happened with Saddam, Noriega, Gaddafi, al-Qaeda and so many other “bad guy” who began their careers as the AngloZionists’ “good guys”. Is it that unreasonable to ask whether the western elites were truly happy when the USSR beat Nazi Germany, or if they were rather horrified by what Stalin had done to what was at that time the single most powerful western military – Germany’s?
A few days ago I saw this picture on Colonel Cassad’s blog:
Looking at that photo I thought that for the western elites, to see these men must have been rather frightening, especially considering that they must have known that their entire war effort was, at most, 20% of what it took to defeat Nazi Germany and that those who had shouldered 80%+ were of an ideology diametrically opposed to capitalism.
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Victoria Nuland’s Lies Make War Inevitable
Victoria Nuland’s Lies Make War Inevitable
Washington’s politics has sunk to the bottom of the cesspool. An Assistant Secretary of State can now appear in testimony before the US Congress and lie endlessly without being held to account. Congress has abjured its responsibility. Nuland’s lies are the kind that lead to war. Unless a meteorite lands on Washington, war is inevitable.
Victoria Nuland Lied to US Congress about Phantom Russian Hoards in Ukraine
By Stephen Lendman
Global Research, March 07, 2015
Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/victoria-nuland-lied-to-us-congress-about-phantom-russian-hoards-in-ukraine/5435233
On March 4, Nuland addressed House Foreign Affairs Committee members.http://www.state.gov/p/eur/rls/rm/2015/mar/238147.htm
She called murdered US-funded, Boris Nemtsov a “freedom fighter, Russian patriot and friend.”
She absurdly called Ukraine “central to our 25 year Transatlantic quest for a ‘Europe whole, free and at peace.’ ”
Fact: Washington wants Ukraine used as a dagger against Russia’s heartland – with menacing US bases on its borders threatening is sovereign independence.
Nuland called US planned and implements year ago Maidan violence using well-trained Nazi thugs “peaceful protest(s) by ordinary Ukrainians.”
“They braved frigid temperatures, brutal beatings and sniper bullets…Ukraine began to forge a new nation…holding free and fair election…and undertaking deep and comprehensive economic and political reforms.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Germany Has Had Enough With US Neocons: Berlin “Stunned” At US Desire For War In Ukraine
Germany Has Had Enough With US Neocons: Berlin “Stunned” At US Desire For War In Ukraine
While Russia’s envoy to NATO notes that statements by the deputy head of NATO testify to the fact that the leaders of the bloc want to intervene in Russia’s internal politics, and are “dreaming of Russian Maidan,” Washington has a bigger problem… Germany. As Der Spiegel reports, while US President Obama ‘supports’ Chancellor Merkel’s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin’s approach. And NATO’s top commander in Europe hasn’t been helping either with sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove’s comments as “dangerous propaganda.”
This is the view of Russia’s permanent envoy to NATO:
“The speech in Riga demonstrates the concern about Russia’s democracy and internal policy. At last, now we know that NATO has a dream, and this dream is a Maidan in Russia,” Aleksandr Grushko said in comment that was tweeted through the Russian representation office in the alliance.Grushko referred to the words of NATO’s deputy secretary general, Alexander Vershbow, who had told a conference in the Latvian capital Riga that President Vladimir Putin’s “aim seems to be to turn Ukraine into a failed state and to suppress and discredit alternative voices in Russia, so as to prevent a Russian ‘Maidan.'” Both officials used the Ukrainian word ‘Maidan’ to describe a string of protest actions that eventually turned into mass unrest and the ousting of the legally elected president and parliament.
And as Der Spiegel reports, The Germans are not happy.
Breedlove’s Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine
US President Obama supports Chancellor Merkel’s efforts at finding a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. But hawks in Washington seem determined to torpedo Berlin’s approach. And NATO’s top commander in Europe hasn’t been helping either.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Europe Blocks U.S. from Racing to War Against Russia
Europe Blocks U.S. from Racing to War Against Russia
On Friday, 6 March, President Obama placed temporarily on ice his planned increase in weapons and soldiers to help the Ukrainian Government to ‘defend’ Ukraine against the ‘terrorists’ in Donbass, which is the Ukrainian region that had voted 90% for the President whom the Obama Administration overthrew in February 2014. (Here is where the EU first learned, on 26 February 2014, that the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych had been a coup instead of a genuine popular revolution.) Obama replaced that Government with a racist-fascist anti-Russian regime, which quickly set aboutexterminating as many residents of Donbass as possible, as quickly as possible (calling them ‘terrorists,’ for their refusal to be ruled by the new Obama-imposed, anti-Russian, Government).
According to German Economic News, Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande are balking at the speed of Obama’s rush to war against Russia.
Earlier, some of the smaller national economies in the European Union — the Czech Republic, Hungary and Greece — dissented from America’s effort to increase economic sanctions and military measures against Russia. But there is now increasing pressure upon the leaders in Germany, France, and Italy, also to separate the EU from the American rush to war against Russia.
Here is my translation of the key passage from the article on this matter, dated March 7th, in German Economic News:
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Ukraine, Neocons and Neonazis
Ukraine, Neocons and Neonazis
See, by now you would think that anyone who reads that all 31 US banks that were tested have passed the Fed stress test, knows this says absolutely nothing about the banks, but all the more about the test. You would think. But the media try – and succeed – to cram it down the public’s throat as a success story anyway.
There’s simply a very strong feeling, if not conviction, in the western media, that they’ve won the propaganda battle. They have no adversary other than the blogosphere, and since they reach a thousand times more people, who are to a (wo)man more complacent and gullible than any of your typical interwebs readers, Bob’s their uncle.
But come on guys, are we really going to let this happen without raising our voices or even batting as much as one of our eyes? We’re drowning in nonsense here, and we’re prepared to just die without even trying to swim?
Look, I find real fun in reading that the UK House of Lords issues a report that claims 150,000 jobs will be created by 2050 in the ‘drone industry’, and at the same time clamors for a ‘personal drone registry’. I mean, these guys are way too old to even know how to spell ‘drone’. But that’s just mindless ‘journalism’, and to a point innocent.
What is not is the two portraits of US girl power in Ukraine from the Guardian and Bloomberg that appeared over the past two days. That’s not innocent, that’s vile and bastardly lies. Victoria Nuland and Natalie Jaresko should not be praised by the western media, they should be taken apart bone by bone, because the roles they play are far too shady to stand up to our alleged democratic principles.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
