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Crazed Washington Drives the World to the Final War
Crazed Washington Drives the World to the Final War
John Pilger is the kind of well-informed, hard-hitting journalist with gobs of integrity that no longer exists in the Western mainstream media. He has the most distinguished career of all in the business.
In the article below he brings stunning information to one of my own themes–the creation by Washington and its NATO vassals of an artificial reality consisting entirely of propaganda into which Washington has placed the entire Western world and all outside who inspire to be part of it. Westerners live in The Matrix, and the presstitutes keep them there. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and the TV channels perform as agents (as in the Matrix film) actively suppressing any glimmer of factual reality.
Western people have no comprehension of the real reasons for Washington’s murderous interventions in Yugoslavia, Middle East, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Indonesia, or Latin America. The most transparent lies are fed to people too ignorant to recognize the lies. The lies have cost huge numbers of deaths and injuries and are leading directly to war with Russia and China.
It is probably too late to stop this war. The war is inevitable because Washington’s doctrine of world hegemony does not permit the existence of other strong countries with independent foreign policies. Unless the House-of-Card US economy collapses, the only way Russia and China can avoid war is to accept Washington’s overlordship.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Financial collapse leads to war
Financial collapse leads to war
Scanning the headlines in the western mainstream press, and then peering behind the one-way mirror to compare that to the actual goings-on, one can’t but get the impression that America’s propagandists, and all those who follow in their wake, are struggling with all their might to concoct rationales for military action of one sort or another, be it supplying weapons to the largely defunct Ukrainian military, or staging parades of US military hardware and troops in the almost completely Russian town of Narva, in Estonia, a few hundred meters away from the Russian border, or putting US “advisers” in harm’s way in parts of Iraq mostly controlled by Islamic militants.
The strenuous efforts to whip up Cold War-like hysteria in the face of an otherwise preoccupied and essentially passive Russia seems out of all proportion to the actual military threat Russia poses. (Yes, volunteers and ammo do filter into Ukraine across the Russian border, but that’s about it.) Further south, the efforts to topple the government of Syria by aiding and arming Islamist radicals seem to be backfiring nicely. But that’s the pattern, isn’t it? What US military involvement in recent memory hasn’t resulted in a fiasco? Maybe failure is not just an option, but more of a requirement?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Despite Russian Warnings, US Will Deploy A Battalion To Ukraine By The End Of The Week
Despite Russian Warnings, US Will Deploy A Battalion To Ukraine By The End Of The Week
“Before this week is up, we’ll be deploying a battalion… to the Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces for the fight that’s taking place,” stated US 173rd Airborne Brigade Commander Colonel Michael Foster said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC on Monday. Despite earlier warnings from Russia (and claims that NATO had not agreed to any such foreign ‘boots on the ground’ action’), Sputnik News reports, Foster added, “what we’ve got laid out issix United States companies that will be training six Ukrainian companies throughout the summer.”
This comes a week after PM David Cameron confirmed Britain will be sending 75 military personnel to help combat Russian military aggression.
Despite earlier reports from Russia’s NATO envoy that, as TASS reports,
NATO has taken no decisions on sending British or any other instructors to Ukraine, Russia’s Ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance Alexander Grushko said on Monday.“NATO has taken no decisions on sending instructors,” he told the Rossiya 24 television channel. “NATO is implementing the decisions that were taken at the political level at the Wales summit in September 2014.”
Moscow will take all measures, including military-technical, to neutralize possible threat from NATO presence in Ukraine, he added.
It seems it is happening, as Sputnik News reports,
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia Warns NATO: Any Threat In Ukraine Will See Military Response
Russia Warns NATO: Any Threat In Ukraine Will See Military Response
As Russia announces the expansion of its Navy by 50 vessels this year, including two new nuclear-powered submarines and an aircraft carrier, it appears NATO’s sabre-rattling has drawn a response/threat/warning. Following British plans to send military ‘advisers’ into Ukraine (which NATO has stated are not confirmed), TASS reports, Russia’s NATO envoy, Alexander Grushko, warns Russia will take all measures against possible NATO threat in Ukraine, adding that Russia’s response may include military measures.
NATO has taken no decisions on sending British or any other instructors to Ukraine, Russia’s Ambassador to the North Atlantic Alliance Alexander Grushko said on Monday.“NATO has taken no decisions on sending instructors,” he told the Rossiya 24 television channel. “NATO is implementing the decisions that were taken at the political level at the Wales summit in September 2014.”
Moscow will take all measures, including military-technical, to neutralize possible threat from NATO presence in Ukraine, he added.
* * *
And this is happening as Russia dramatically expands its military forces. As The Moscow Times reports,
The Russian navy will receive 50 vessels of various sizes and classes this year, navy Chief Admiral Viktor Chirkov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency on Monday.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
ISA MUNAYEV’S WAR THE FINAL DAYS OF A CHECHEN COMMANDER FIGHTING IN UKRAINE
ISA MUNAYEV’S WAR
THE FINAL DAYS OF A CHECHEN COMMANDER FIGHTING IN UKRAINE
IN SEPTEMBER OF 2014, I found myself standing on a narrow, potholed street in Kiev, east of the Dnieper River, in an area known as the Left Bank. I didn’t even know, at that point, whom I was meeting. I knew only that Khalid, my contact in Turkey with the Islamic State, had told me his “brothers” were in Ukraine, and I could trust them.
When one of them called me, I was given the address of a small street in the Ukrainian capital where I should go, and no other information. When I arrived, I found myself in a maze of Soviet apartment blocks. I immediately noticed two well-built men walking by; they were bearded, with black sunglasses and black leather jackets. When I looked closely, I could see sticking out of their jackets the barrels of small machine guns.
“Kandahar, Kandahar,” one of them said into his radio, after approaching me.
Could we go in? “No,” was the answer. The “commander” was still busy.
The armed men guided me past rows of Soviet-era apartment buildings, and then we waited in a wide, open square among the tall, concrete buildings. After half an hour of waiting, we wove through the housing complex until we approached a 10-story building, then took the elevator up to a mid-level floor and entered a small apartment. The single room was furnished with a bed, a kitchen table and two chairs.
Sitting inside the small apartment was Isa Munayev. I recognized him immediately, because he was one of the few Chechens serving in Ukraine who was photographed frequently without a mask. He was upset, and shouting into the phone: “We came to die for you, and you don’t even want to do what you promised.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China Just Sided With Russia Over The Ukraine Conflict
China Just Sided With Russia Over The Ukraine Conflict
When it comes to the Ukraine proxy war, which started in earnest just about one year ago with the violent coup that overthrew then president Yanukovich and replaced him with a local pro-US oligarch, there has been no ambiguity who the key actors were: on the left, we had the west, personified by the US, the European Union, and NATO in general; while on the right we had Russia. In fact, if there was any confusion, it was about the role of that other “elephant in the room” – China.
To be sure, a question few asked throughout the Ukraine civil war is just whose side is China leaning toward. After all the precarious balance of power between NATO and Russia had resulted in a stalemate in which neither side has an obvious advantage (even as the Ukraine economy died, and its currency hyperinflated, waiting for a clear winner), and the explicit or implicit support of China to either camp would make all the difference in the world, not to mention the world’s most formidable axis.
Today we finally got the answer, and the winner is… this guy:
Xinhua reported that late on Thursday Qu Xing, China’s ambassador to Belgium, was quoted as blaming competition between Russia and the West for the Ukraine crisis, urging Western powers to “abandon the zero-sum mentality” with Russia.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Ukraine Prepares for an Attack Against Russia
Ukraine Prepares for an Attack Against Russia
The post-coup leaders of Ukraine have routinely said that Ukraine should destroy Russia; and, now, starting on February 24th, they are placing into position the key prerequisite for doing so, which is the advanced Anti-Ballistic-Missile, or ABM, system, S-300, which is described as follows by wikipedia:
“The S-300 is regarded as one of the most potent anti-aircraft missile systems currently fielded.[3] Its radars have the ability to simultaneously track up to 100 targets while engaging up to 12/24/36 targets. The S-300 deployment time is five minutes.[3] The S-300 missiles are sealed rounds and require no maintenance over their lifetime. An evolved version of the S-300 system is the S-400 (NATO reporting name SA-21 Growler), which entered limited service in 2004.”
The S-300 (otherwise called “SAM C-300”) is designed to protect against retaliation. The entire purpose of ABMs is to disable retaliation. In that sense, ABMs are the most aggressive weapons of all. They are specifically designed to prevent retaliation from a nation that has been attacked and that is responding by sending in its own bombers to retaliate.
Here is one report, February 24th, of installation of these ABMs, from the region near Odessa, including a photo of these weapons on a truck:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is the US Overplaying Its Energy Hand?
Is the US Overplaying Its Energy Hand?
In the grand poker game of geopolitics, energy is often the wild card. That’s why the Middle East is such a mess: Great Powers (first Britain, more recently the United States) have been installing, propping up, toppling, threatening, or bribing regimes in that region — almost always to the detriment of indigenous populations — ever since the first oil discovery there prior to World War I.
Oil and natural gas interests are clearly implicated in current turmoil in or around Libya, Iraq, Syria, and Iran—and also Ukraine. In each instance it requires some historical context to understand the peculiarities of the situation; let’s focus for a moment on the last of these countries.
Ukraine has long been a transit route for Russian gas destined for Europe. The fact that Russia is an energy superpower is frustrating to Anglo-American geopolitical strategists, who see Eurasia as the key square on the “grand chessboard” (to use Zbigniew Brzezinski’s phrase) for maintaining global dominance. Hence their strategy of hemming Russia’s western flank with NATO bases, and their more recent tactic of subverting the constitutional (although thoroughly corrupt) Ukrainian government of Viktor Yanukovych (via injections of CIA cash to foment violent demonstrations) and immediately legitimizing the coup that overthrew him. Washington evidently would like either to control or to destabilize and weaken Russia; this, after all, is the way the West has dealt for decades with energy exporters in the Middle East. If Moscow won’t be the next Riyadh or Kuwait City, then let it become the next Tehran. This strategy makes many people in Europe nervous: they don’t much like dependency on Russia for energy imports, but they positively dread the prospect of being somehow cut off from needed supplies of natural gas.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Real Ukraine Aggressor: IMF Burying Bankrupt Country In Debt To Fight Civil War
The Real Ukraine Aggressor: IMF Burying Bankrupt Country In Debt To Fight Civil War
Ukraine risks losing support from IMF member countries for a proposed $17.5 billion bailout if the conflict in the former Soviet republic continues to escalate, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The new four-year loan program is awaiting approval by the International Monetary Fund’s executive board, which represents the lender’s 188 member nations. Getting the panel’s consent will become more challenging if pro-Russia rebels continue their advance and seize territory such as the strategic port city of Mariupol, one of the people said.
A second person said that while a worsening conflict would complicate approval, IMF country representatives are likely to maintain their support unless an open conflict with Russia breaks out affecting the majority of Ukraine. Both people asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
Any doubts over the IMF funds would increase pressure on Ukrainian allies including the U.S. and European Union to step up their own funding to prevent the country from becoming more vulnerable to Russian economic pressure and wider incursion by pro-Russia rebels. A worsening conflict would make it tougher for Ukraine to maintain economic commitments to the IMF and repay the money while deepening the fund’s involvement in the worst standoff in Europe since the end of the Cold War.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Ukraine Enters The Endgame
Ukraine Enters The Endgame
Back in March 2014 we forecast that it in the aftermath of the US State Department-sponsored military coup in Kiev, it was only a matter of time before Ukraine (all of its sovereign gold having since “vaporized“) succumbed to full blown hyperinflation and economic implosion. Less than a year later, precisely this outcome has finally played out, and as a result, the entire nation has finally entered its economic endgame, one which has two conclusion: either it joins Greece in becoming a ward of Europe (of which it is not an official member) and the IMF (thank you Joe Q Public taxpayer), or it quietly fades away into insolvent “failed state” status.
This is in a nutshell the assessment by Goldman Sachs, presented below, which really doesn’t say much we didn’t cover earlier in “Ukraine Enters Hyperinflation: Currency Trading Halted, “Soon We Will Walk Around With Suitcases For Cash“, but which does lays out the (very unpleasant) alternatives for yet another nation brought to ruin through American neo-colonial expansion, in what may well be a record short period of time. Of these, the primary ones focus on yet another IMF bailout which the agency may find some resistance to as a result of the near-total collapse of Greece at the same time. And not only that but Goldman’s “base case of IMF fund disbursement in mid-March may not come quickly enough to stabilize the Hryvnia.” Oops.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Briefing For A Descent Into Hell
Briefing For A Descent Into Hell
Oh well, some are more equal than others. One day after Eurogroup head Dijsselbloem says France won’t get any more lenience …
France Must Respect EU Budget Rules
France must meet EU budget targets or risk damaging the bloc’s entire framework for policing countries’ spending plans, the head of the Eurogroup said on Tuesday. “I don’t think small or larger countries should be treated differently … It is crucial for the credibility of the whole fiscal framework that also France commits to it, both in fiscal terms and in reform terms,” Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who chair meetings of eurozone finance ministers, told the European Parliament. “I think that the Commission has allowed itself and France more time to scrutinise the figures but also to take more measures and prepare more proposals. The Commission will assess them first and then report to us at the beginning of March.”
… the EC overrules him. Just like he overruled them a few days ago on the proposal for Greece that EC head Juncker had prepared for Varoufakis, but which Dijsselbloem swept off the table. A tit for tat battle of the peacocks? Talking with one voice it ain’t.
France Gets More Time to Meet EU Budget Rules
European Union officials on Wednesday gave France until 2017 to bring its government finances in line with the bloc’s budget rules, despite the country’s continued failure to adhere to them. The European Commission said it was recommending that France be given what amounted to a two-year extension to cut its deficit, which is expected to come in at around 4.1% of GDP this year and next, well above the 3% ceiling for the bloc. The commission, the executive arm of the European Union, is charged with signing off on member states’ budgets to ensure they comply with Union rules.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Washington Has Resurrected The Threat Of Nuclear War
Washington Has Resurrected The Threat Of Nuclear War
Foreign Affairs is the publication of the elitist Council on Foreign Relations, a collection of former and current government officials, academics, and corporate and financial executives who regard themselves as the custodian and formulator of US foreign policy. The publication of the council carries the heavy weight of authority. One doesn’t expect to find humor in it, but I found myself roaring with laughter while reading an article in the February 5 online issue by Alexander J. Motyl, “Goodbye, Putin: Why the President’s Days Are Numbered.”
I assumed I was reading a clever parody of Washington’s anti-Putin propaganda. Absurd statement followed absurd statement. It was better than Colbert. I couldn’t stop laughing.
To my dismay I discovered that the absolute gibberish wasn’t a parody of Washington’s propaganda. Motyl, an ardent Ukrainian nationalist, is a professor at Rugers University and was not joking when he wrote that Putin had stolen $45 billion, that Putin was resurrecting the Soviet Empire, that Putin had troops and tanks in Ukraine and had started the war in Ukraine, that Putin is an authoritarian whose regime is “exceedingly brittle” and subject to being overthrown at any time by the people Putin has bought off with revenues from the former high oil price, or by “an Orange Revolution in Moscow” in which Putin is overthrown by Washington orchestrated demonstrations by US financed NGOs as in Ukraine, or by a coup d’etat by Putin’s Praetorial guards. And if none of this sends Putin goodbye, the North Caucasus, Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and the Crimean Tarters are spinning out of control and will do Washington’s will by unseating Putin. Only the West’s friendly relationship with Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan can shield “the rest of the world from Putin’s disastrous legacy of ruin.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How Far Is It From Kiev To Athens?
How Far Is It From Kiev To Athens?
Riddle me this, Batman. I don’t think I get it, and I definitely don’t get why nobody is asking any questions. The IMF and EU make a lot of noise – through the Eurogroup – about all the conditions Greece has to address to get even a mild extension of support, while the same IMF and EU keep on handing out cash to Ukraine without as much as a whisper – at least publicly.
The Kiev government, which has been ceaselessly and ruthlessly attacking its own people, is now portrayed as needing – monetary and military – western help in order to be able to ‘defend’ itself. From the people it’s been attacking, presumably. And hardly a soul in the west asks what that is all about.
Why did Kiev kill 5000 of its own citizens? Because there are people in East Ukraine who had – and still have – the guts to say they don’t want to be ruled by a regime willing to murder them for saying they don’t want to be ruled by it. And just in case there’s any confusion left about this, yes, that is the regime we are actively supporting, in undoubtedly many more ways than are made public. All the doubts about the western narrative are swept aside with one move: blame Putin.
Of the two countries, Greece, despite its humanitarian issues, is by far the luckiest one. Ukraine is quite a few steps further down the hill. One can be forgiven for contemplating that the west, aided by President Poroshenko and the Yats regime in Kiev, is dead set on obliterating the entire nation.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Interventionism Kills: Post-Coup Ukraine One Year Later
Interventionism Kills: Post-Coup Ukraine One Year Later
It was one year ago last weekend that a violent coup overthrew the legally elected government of Ukraine. That coup was not only supported by US and EU governments — much of it was actually planned by them. Looking back at the events that led to the overthrow it is clear that without foreign intervention Ukraine would not be in its current, seemingly hopeless situation.
By the end of 2013, Ukraine’s economy was in ruins. The government was desperate for an economic bailout and then-president Yanukovych first looked west to the US and EU before deciding to accept an offer of help from Russia. Residents of south and east Ukraine, who largely speak Russian and trade extensively with Russia were pleased with the decision. West Ukrainians who identify with Poland and Europe began to protest. Ukraine is a deeply divided country and the president came from the eastern region.
At this point the conflict was just another chapter in Ukraine’s difficult post-Soviet history. There was bound to be some discontent over the decision, but if there had been no foreign intervention in support of the protests you would likely not be reading this column today. The problem may well have solved itself in due time rather than escalated into a full-out civil war. But the interventionists in the US and EU won out again, and their interventionist project has been a disaster.
The protests at the end of 2013 grew more dramatic and violent and soon a steady stream of US and EU politicians were openly participating, as protesters called for the overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Senator John McCain made several visits to Kiev and even addressed the crowd to encourage them.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Prominent French Journalist Calls For France-Germany-Russia Alliance
Prominent French Journalist Calls For France-Germany-Russia Alliance
With the Ukraine civil war – courtesy of the constant prodding of the US State Department – inching ever closer to an all out military confrontation with Russia, and further escalation in terms of western sanctions on the Kremlin, as well as even more acute countermeasures and retaliation by Russia, increasingly more in Europe are asking themselves the question, if not in those exact words, “if the US said to fuck the EU, then why should the EU allign with the US?”
One person doing just that is prominent and controversial French writer and political journalist Eric Zemmour, who on Friday said that France and Germany, following the historical tradition, should work on forming an alliance with Russia.
“NATO is doing its utmost to present Russia as an enemy of the West and thereby justify its existence,” Zemmour wrote in Le Figaro Magazine. “Fortunately, France and Germany in due time blocked Ukraine’s accession to NATO, and that’s a positive fact,” the journalist said.
“Now when they finally coordinated their positions on establishing relations with Moscow, they should not stop halfway and should move towards forming a tripartite alliance with Russia,” he said, recalling numerous efforts in the past by “kings, emperors and presidents” of the three countries to set up such an alliance.
As further cited by Tass, such a bloc “will be the only chance for Europe to get rid of the United States protectorate and become, in the words of General de Gaulle, a ‘Free Europe’.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
