US/NATO War on Russia

[David Guyatt]

Great article by Chris Martenson above, Paul.

[David Guyatt]

Everything still seems to be very quiet on the two French built Mistral helicopter carriers bought by Russia.

In view of the French procurement office declining to answer questions, I wonder if the deal has been quietly scheduled to go ahead if the Ukraine ceasefire if eventually deemed a success? And in view of the shift in thinking in Paris and Berlin about the rapprochement with Russia at the expense of their relationship with the US, I expect delivery to take place in the not too distant future.

From DefenseNews:

Russia Wants Formal French Answer on Mistral

By Pierre Tran5:01 p.m. EST January 13, 2015

(Photo: Jean-Sebastien Evrard/AFP)

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PARIS The French procurement office Tuesday declined to comment on a report Russia has asked for a written statement on whether the Mistral class helicopter carrier will be delivered to Moscow.
Russia officially sent a written request to France for an explanation of the refusal to deliver the Mistral warship, Russian news agency Ria-Novosti reported, according to Agence France-Presse.
A Russian official in the military and technical cooperation service sent the letter to the Direction Générale de l'Armement (DGA) procurement office, "with the aim of receiving an official reply," the report said.
A DGA spokesman declined to comment.
Russia has called on France to either deliver the Mistral or hand back the payment.
DCNS, prime contractor for the Mistral, organized an official handover of the Vladivostok on Nov. 14, the first of the two helicopter carriers bought by Russia.
France on Nov. 25 suspended the delivery and said the warship would only be released if a real cease-fire was observed in Ukraine and if Moscow and Kiev reached a political settlement over the deadly dispute in eastern Ukraine.
The Mistral contract is understood to have been written under Swiss law. Under the force majeure clause in a sales contract, there is generally a 180-day suspension until a decision to cancel is required.
The then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy insisted on going ahead in 2011 with the €1.2 billion (US $1.4 billion) sale of the two warships, Vladivostok and Sevastopol, much to the concern of allies in Central European and the Baltics.

[David Guyatt]

The belch inspiring propaganda continues apace in the UK with this published by the poodle's poodle, the Indy:

Ukraine crisis: House of Lords criticises EU and Britain for 'sleepwalking into crisis' as Moscow and Nato remain on diplomatic collision course



West on a 'razor's edge' over response to Russian expansionism

KIM SENGUPTA

Thursday 19 February 2015

The fraught relationship between Russia and the West, which was supposed to improve following an agreement over Ukraine, has descended instead into renewed acrimony after a series of tense military and diplomatic confrontations.

France and Germany, which had brokered the Minsk accord last week, were yesterday trying to hold together the increasingly fragile ceasefire in Ukraine amid reports that fighting was spreading once again. Kremlin-backed separatists and Cossack fighters triumphantly paraded through the shattered town of Debaltseve, a strategic point they had captured in the past 48 hours.
Britain, which along with the EU will be strongly criticised by a House of Lords committee today for "sleep-walking into this crisis", was drawn towards centre-stage after two Russian Bear bombers off the coast of Cornwall but just outside UK airspace were met by RAF jets scrambled from their base in Coningsby, Lincolnshire.

The apparent probe of British readiness came soon after the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, accused President Vladimir Putin of trying to extend his campaign of destabilisation to the Baltic countries. The Russian leader, he said, presented as much of a threat to Europe as Isis.
David Cameron said Moscow was trying to make "some sort of point" by its repeated deployment of planes close to British airspace, adding: "I don't think we should dignify it with too much of a response."
Weary Ukrainian servicemen leave the area around the besieged town of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday after fierce combat with pro-Russian rebels (Reuters)
Russia reacted with fury at Mr Fallon's remarks, however. Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Lukashevich declared that his comments were "already beyond diplomatic ethics", adding: "The characterisation of Russia is completely intolerable. We will find a way to respond to the comments."
But Mr Fallon received support at home and abroad for his warning on Moscow's intentions. Valdis Dombrovskis, the vice-president of the European Commission, and a former Prime Minister of Latvia, said: "Russia's aggression against Ukraine is very worrying for Baltic states. It shows that Russia is looking to redraw Europe's 21st-century borders by force, and it must be noted that Ukraine is not the first country to face Russian aggression."
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said: "Russia is behaving aggressively now as we speak. I really do see threats to all countries, If we fail to act now to what's happening in Ukraine, there will be a big temptation [for Russia] to further instigate situations elsewhere."
Latvia's Finance Minister, Janis Reirs, said that his country had already detected elements of "hybrid warfare" against his nation.
In London, Rory Stewart, the chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, said the West was on a "political razor-edge" over how to balance its response to Mr Putin, weighing the risk of allowing Russian expansionism to go unchecked and triggering further conflicts.
He said: "There's no doubt at all that probably the most vulnerable part of the Nato alliance at the moment is the Baltic states."
Dark days ahead? The Freedom Monument in Riga during a partial eclipse of the Sun (EPA)
He urged all British political parties to write into their manifestoes a commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defence as required by Nato to send a message to Mr Putin. He also asked them to prepare to deal with threats such as cyber-attacks, irregular troops, and propaganda.
The EU committee of the House of Lords also argued, in the findings of an inquiry to be published today, that Western Europe failed to detect the real character of the Kremlin. For too long, it said, the relationship had been based on the "optimistic premise" that Russia was on a trajectory to democracy.
The British Government, which is one of the guarantors of the territorial integrity of Ukraine in return for it giving up a nuclear arsenal, was heavily criticised for not being "as active or as visible as it could have been".
"It [the committee] believes that the EU, and by implication the UK, was guilty of sleep-walking into this crisis," said the committee chairman, Lord Tugendhat. "The lack of robust analytical capacity, in both the UK and the EU, effectively led to a catastrophic misreading of the mood in the run-up to the crisis."

Western governments stressed that continuing fighting risked the breakdown of the Minsk agreement, but the language was markedly muted. The US administration has put on hold a decision on whether or not to supply the Ukrainian government with heavy weaponry; White House spokesman Eric Schultz said: "What was agreed to last week was not a shopping list."
Nato insists measures have already been taken to counter Russian aggression in the Baltic and eastern Europe, with bases in the area manned by Allied troops.
Kremlin officials have complained that the move breaches an agreement, made during Boris Yeltsin's presidency, that Nato would not set up military bases in former Warsaw Pact states close to Russia's borders.
Douglas Lute, the US ambassador to Nato, said: "These bases are not permanent and, as far as we are concerned, they are fully within the agreement."

[David Guyatt]

From GlobalResearch:

Ukraine, America's "Lebensraum". Is Washington Preparing to Wage War on Russia?

Truce on the First Anniversary of the US-Led Coup

By Prof. John McMurtry
Global Research, February 18, 2015

Region: Russia and FSU
In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT

Seeing through the Official Lies on Ukraine

"We can no longer find any willingness on the part of Poland to conduct serious negotiations with us. These proposals for mediation have failed because [of ] - Polish mobilization." (Adolph Hitler, 1939)

These are the words of Adolph Hitler just before invading Poland and then the Soviet Union. I have replaced Poland with Russia (see below) to show the analogy of US and Nazi pretexts.

"We can no longer find any willingness on the part of Russia to conduct serious negotiations with us. These proposals for mediation have failed because [of ] - Russian mobilization."

This is not surprising given the very significant role that major US corporations like GM, IBM, Dupont, Ford, Standard Oil, Chase Bank as well as George and Jeb Bush's grandfather Prescott who profited big as a bank-front director for the Nazi death machine run (not to mention the big Nazi corporations doing very well in the US during and after the war including Siemens and Allianz). There were also the deals German war criminals made to escape post-War trials, providing 70% of NATO's intelligence after the war and direction to death squads in Latin America.
After the Poland invasion by pretext provided initial Lebensraum of large fertile lands and an open path to Russia for the Nazis, the invasion of Ukraine offered a bigger prize. Ukraine was and remains a breadbasket of the world, not much mentioned in Western reports as US-led corporate globalization now sweeps East. In 1940's Ukraine, militant collaborators with Hitler's Nazis arose at every level to assist in the genocide of Jews, German occupation, killing of resisters, and policing of concentration camps. These pro-Nazi militants featuring Stephen Bandera are still idolized today by their neo-Nazi descendents whose leaders have crucial armed-force posts and militias within post-coup Ukraine, as reports from Global Research like Michel Chossudovsky's The U.S. has Installed a Neo-Nazi Government in Ukraine have observed. Yet mockery of any Ukraine-fascist reality today keeps the memory hole closed. "Dream on", sneers New York Times International Weekly to the facts without any counter-evidence, and so denial publicly prevails as Ukraine neo-Nazis have armed militias, death squads and the notorious Azov battalion on the ground and cabinet posts in the post-coup Kiev state.
All is "Putin's paranoia" in the Western media in a pervasive campaign of vilification that holds the story together through all its lies. Charges of aggression and crime against Russia and Putin are daily proclaimed with no evidence, but together provide a pretext for why "Russia must be stopped" and the US-led West Ukraine regime armed with US weapons to "teach Putin a lesson". The known five billion dollars spent on political destabilization of Ukraine in recent years, the covert special forces, and the direct financing and orchestration of the overtly fascist coup leaders all disappear into the anti-Putin/Russia propaganda field.
At the very same time, the descendents of the Eastern resisters to the Nazi occupation have been resisting the reborn Ukraine fascist forces. Yet they are called "terrorists" now as then and war-criminal attacks on the civilian population and infrastructures by US/Kiev direction have followed ever since the illegal violent coup year ago. For months only abuse and indiscriminate rocket and bombing attacks attacked the Eastern Ukraine civil resistance until military mobilization occurred with Russian arms and volunteer assistance as well as captured tanks and armaments. That is where we are today with the resistance forces quickly gaining the upper hand against the real aggressor. Neo-Nazi gangs and militias are good at terrorizing and mass murdering civilians, and a mostly unwilling and drafted Ukraine army can pound civilians and infrastructures into hell with artillery, rockets and bombs. But an impassioned armed resistance against them of people speaking the same language and living the same culture will defeat them, and so it has happened here. The February 15 truce has been made because the Eastern-Ukraine resistance and forces have effectively pushed the Kiev forces, fascist militias and mercenaries out of the Donbass/Donetsk region. It was also possible because the US was not directly involved in the Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia meetings..
Is the Truce Just a Space for the US-led Forces to Build More War towards Russia?
No sooner was the truce signed than all onus was put on Russia to sustain it with none evident on Kiev or its US master. Is it just another pause before more weapons, special forces and advisers come in to prop up the US-constructed coup state in Kiev? Certainly that is what the West-Ukraine puppet leaders and US war party are pressing for.
Now most of all, the connections to the Nazi past in Ukraine and the US itself go down the memory hole. So too does the recent warning by Italy's former Minister of the Economy, Giulio Tremonti, about the new forces at work in Europe "financial fascism, white fascism" (translated from his apparently suppressed 2012 book, Emergency Exit: Ending the Tyranny of Finance). In short, all the degenerate trends across big bank dictatorship, corporate oligarchies running Europe, ever more armed forces against ever more dispossessed adversaries, squeezing workers wages and employment without limit, devouring attacks on public sectors and programs across nations to privatize their revenues, and now outright civil war in Ukraine are at work together in a forming a situation which is hell on earth in the long social democratic Europe before 2008 (as diagnosed in global depth by my The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: From Crisis to Cure). Ukraine is the where the war of movement and land clearance is focused now because the greatest resistance yet to the carcinomic program has arisen here.
Again we might return to the Nazi past to find connective threads of meaning. US and Nazi justifications have much in common. Before being able to publicly justify Nazi Germany's military extension into East Europe, Hitler had to have a pretext, to satisfy public opinion. This was managed by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 August 1939 attacking a German radio station, Sender Gleiwitz, inside Germany near the border. All went as planned. And so too the movement on to Ukraine and Russia unrolled, always to "stop aggression" the very same words and reverse pretexts. And always resisters were "terrorists". These central concepts are at the core of the official stories of Nazi Germany as well as the US. But not only Eastern Europe is thus subjugated. The US has moved far beyond where Hitler expanded, from Iraq to Honduras to Venezuela to Vietnam where does it stop? Always the question is, "where will Putin stop?" None stop to reflect that no Russian regular forces have moved beyond Russia's borders, as repeatedly divulged under questioning by a Ukraine intelligence spokesman, the Chief of Staff himself, General Muzenko, and Ukraine' s spokesman, Major Alexander Raran, at truce time . On the other hand while continuously proclaiming the lie that "Russian troops have invaded Ukraine", US armed forces move across borders around the world. Where do they stop? They threaten force everywhere, and one can always tell that a people is resisting when the US embargoes, threatens or bombs them here with doubled-troop deployments across all Russia's Western borders.
The difference from the Nazis is the normal subjugation by financial and trade levers, and slower motion of armed forces against resistance. World rule has already been largely achieved. But Putin, Russia and most of all Eastern Ukraine itself have drawn a long overdue line. Russia now is no longer an open looting basin for transnational oligarchs with a drunken puppet Yeltsin in charge. Armed resistance on the ground from the Donbass region has stopped the world's most lethal ever war-and-money machine from taking all of Ukraine by a US-led and neo-Nazi enforced coup. The Nazis themselves would have kept going. The US does not, and the fascist rump of Ukriane is neither popular nor competent. But the war party is everywhere demanding Russian blood for support of the resistance. It all started with Kiev-led sniper mass murders in Maidan square, and was whipped further into frenzy at the downing of a European-filled passenger jet. Yet Putin and Russia have not been so easily blamed in the Internet age where facts come out despite corporate mass media monopoly and NATO dominance.
There is no need to idealize Russia or Putin. Yet they do show exceptional capacity to withstand never-ending terror and attacks from the West, saving the world from Napoleon, Hitler and so far the US war state going East today. The evidence of "Russia's aggression" armed invading or civil destabilizing of other countries against international law is pervasive for the US, but sorely lacking in the case of Russia. Knowledge here can win the day. The mass murder, destitution, and oppression in Europe is becoming ever better known, especially in Ukraine itself, and so too the Nazi connections. Once people awake to the worst in fact, they will not go along with the next big-lie pretext for aerial war and destroying another society.
How the Quality Press Lies for the Official Story to Stay Believed
Today on the eve of the first anniversary of the US-led fascist coup in Ukraine and a new truce agreement, the anti-Russia propaganda peaks as if to ensure that any future violation is blamed on Russia. The underlying US-EU corporate plan to pry open Ukraine and Russia downstream as undefended looting basins is kept quiet because it is not supported by any public. And those who serve the program do not fight so well as we have seen in Ukraine when confronted by people fighting for their mother country and community lives. That is why the call is so fervent from the war party to get US weapons to the Kiev puppet state. The official story, of course, is opposite. The weaker is, as always, accused of being the despotic villain that must be brought under control, here a country with a declining population two-thirds the size of Brazil.
Even the academic press gets into the reverse blame game. Yale University Press recently published a book Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West which was year glowingly reported in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Guardian Weekly (among others) despite its reversal of the most basic facts of the Ukraine crisis. The serial mass murders by snipers which began Ukraine's violent coup d'etat one year ago are falsely attributed to the pro-Russian President who fled the coup, even though EU evidence has itself shown Kiev agency in the mass murders and the US-led coup leadership refused to investigate (as documented ahead). Yale author Andrew Wilson also asserts with the corporate media that the shootdown of Malaysia flight MH17 killing 298 passengers was by a Buk missile "from Moscow". Yet the European Unions Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE), the chief investigating body, has revealed no such evidence while the plausible possibility of a covert black-op to blame on Russia or the Donetsk resistance is blinkered out. The tragedy was certainly not in the interests of the resistance because it gained nothing and almost got war declared on it by NATO as Kiev has aimed for all along. As always, again, the first question of forensic justice cui bono? is never asked.
As ultimatums and embargoes from the US and the EU continually escalate blaming "Russia's aggression" without sustainable evidence ever produced, the war-mongering by the corporate media simultaneously increases to foment war fever. None seem to have processed the undeniable fact that the neutrality and non-arming of Ukraine was promised by NATO and the US Secretary of State James Baker in 1991. Still the war party's favorite liars like John McCain and the New York Timesdeclare unsubstantiated war-pretext accusations daily. So the question arises: What will be the nextbig-lie pretext for NATO and US armed intervention?
State and media war mongers give a hint on what is being cooked up. Consider this paradigm example. The iconic British Guardian and its eminent writer on political affairs, Timothy Garton Ash, headline a February full-page story just before the new truce and coup anniversary, "Putin must be stopped. Guns will be essential", the headline screams. Why? "Putin is the Slobodan Milosevic [convicted war criminal] of the old Soviet Union [KGB communist]", Ash proclaims. Then he further alleges with no evidence that Putin and Russia only "spew anti-Western propaganda" and "if the [NATO] threat did not exist Russian television would invent it". We may observe here another perfect reversal of Western propaganda operations onto the leader and weaker society it is attacking. Impartial observation of the Western press will find in fact continuous slanders at will, while Putin and RT are surprisingly polite in comparison. In general, there is no standard of truth or slander to inhibit free-roaming hate and falsehoods against any foreign force whatever the facts of the matter. Mass sales of product and expensive advertising also rise, and key to the whole system the audience is churned to aggressive diversion from their own oppression.
The Guardian story reproduces the old lies as well floating new ones. Putin uses "energy blackmail" (that is, requirement for overdue payments for gas in the billions of Euros), and brings only "more blood and tears" to peoples (although staying on its borders while the US is war-gaming over 6000 miles from Washington). The New York Times feeds in with war propaganda from the other side of the ocean on the very weekend of truce (NYT Weekly, February. 14-15). It dismisses Russia's encirclement by escalating US-led NATO forces in six countries and the Black Sea as a "preposterous fable - to generate hysteria and buttress Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine". Breathtaking erasure of the most basic facts and reverse projection onto the designated Enemy here combine in a paradigm illustration of the big-lie system at work.
At the same time, news stories have silently shifted to a new slant to finally report the civilians and infrastructures of Eastern Ukraine being one-way shelled and bombed to ruin by US-led Kiev, but with no identification of which side is aerial bombing and shelling civilians and civilian targets. In this way the US-led West-Ukraine forces that perform all of the aerial bombing and until recently almost all of the artillery shelling of public and civilian structures and citizens are collapsed into the general fighting that is all blamed on "Russia's aggression". The same article under the bold-print heading ofIntelligence describes the denial of "all the Russian forces" as "nonsense" and a "figment of the imagination" although as we have seen the denial has come under questioning from the top of the Ukraine armed forces and intelligence spokesmen themselves. The lying propaganda techniques are a study in their own right. The invariably feature the elimination and reversal of facts as their only consistent method.
The really unspeakable fact is erased altogether, but lies deeper still. The age-old Russian-speaking minority of Ukraine almost the same in language but not beliefs has been subjected to the biggest ethnic cleansing operation of the millennium. A now estimated 1,500,000 people have been driven from their homes by one-way Kiev bombings and bombardments of even hospitals, schools and public buses while stopping all access to Eastern citizens means of existence as far as possible (not done by Putin even in the height of the US-sponsored war in Chechnya). The distinction between the millions of Eastern Ukraine's Russia-speaking victims by US-led Kiev bombing, terror and life means deprivation and those in Kiev-ruled Western territory who are untouched by any rebel bombs and terror is simply abolished. This is how a genocide of the Eastern Ukraine people stays in motion while all that is reported is "Russia's aggression against Ukraine".
The Unseen Genocidal Program of the US-Led Coup Government
Almost down the memory hole is the precipitating cause of the Ukraine civil war a spectacularly violent neo-Nazi-led coup overthrowing the established elected federal government of the Party of Regions the now collapsed federalist party supported by most citizens before the US-orchestrated coup. The federalist option was thus annihilated to cause the uprising of Eastern Ukraine which, accordingly, was targeted for annihilation too. There have three main methods for this genocidal clearance operation whose people produce 95% of the country's coal and most of its exports as well being rooted in a different language, culture, social organization and political-religious belief system. The first has been cultural dispossession and erasure abolition of past language rights and federal accountability to the region's people, the initial spur of the East's uprising along with the neo-Nazi leadership of the coup state. Nothing but worse to come was promised by this stripping of cultural and regional rights and institution of a US-led extreme-rightist state led on the ground and in cabinet posts by open neo-Nazis with US support, along with a banker puppet as prime minister who bawls "terrorists" and "Russian aggression" every other sentence. I bracket out proper names to ensure the underlying design is clear because submergence in alien names is part of the cover-up of every deciding fact by the official story.
The second level of genocidal method is armed-force terror by fascist gangs and militias on the ground committing atrocities combined with indiscriminate one-way aerial bombing and relentless artillery bombardment of civilians and civilian sites, vehicles and infrastructures never reported in Western corporate media even as the fleeing people multiplied to far more than ISIS proportions. The third and most unrecognized method even by critics has been deliberate mass starvation. It has proceeded among other instruments by cut-off of all social security and pensions to Eastern citizens, freezing of bank accounts to be inaccessible, stoppage of electricity, and proclaiming "Russian invasion" every time food lorries came in to provide water and food to the starving people, with NATO's Supreme Commander war-mongering daily about Russian troop build-ups and intentions to invade. Meanwhile every more sanctions and manipulations of global markets to break Russia's capacity to assist or to defend escalated along with pervasively lying propaganda (as illustrated above). Most deeply, all the dots remained unjoined by any public observation with for example, CBC and the NDP echoing the official story daily. .
Given the Russia-speaking citizens who have led the revolt against the fascist-led coup and its US godfather, one could see a preconscious reversal of history back to Nazi-led dominance, oligarchy of the rich and father cult in Ukraine, and hate propaganda as again the moving force of public opinion. As every turn of aggression projected onto Russia has shown for a year, economic war on Russia and cumulative total war machinations have formed with the EU and other satellite corporate states in a geo-strategic trajectory interested in "peace" only as space for more war of expansion and ruin, automatically reverse-blamed on Putin to sustain it. It is difficult to deny the operationalization of the familiar grand objective of totalizing world rule always blamed on the resisters against it. Certainly as in other US-orchestrated "regime changes", official and media attention blame the very party who has been attacked and never report the catastrophic consequences on innocent people's lives, even when the terror and destruction becomes genocidal in scope.
Certainly the US-orchestrated "regime change" in Ukraine and continuous subsequent war crimes never reported has led to the worst large-scale mass murdering in Europe since the Nazis, already beyond Bosnia another US-led expansion of transnational corporate rule backed by NATO bombing. The US-orchestrated "regime change" in Ukraine and its war crimes never reported in the Western media has already executed a very large-scale homicidal planning which none dares to name in public. Consider the dimensions one-way aerial bombing and indiscriminate attacks of civilians and infrastructures in the Donbass area alone, mass starvation of millions of mainly Russia-speaking citizens, armed-force land clearances and appropriations, one-way mass murder atrocities by the US-led side, documented torture and rape by neo-Nazi death squads and the infamous Azov battalion, and ever more hundreds of thousands of people forced to flee their homes and region in East Ukraine but nowhere else. A mounting ethnic cleansing' has already happened but is still unspeakable to report in the West.
Instead month after month the audience has been conditioned to revile the new hate object of Vladmir Putin, and thus to justify any life-destructive action at all in East Ukraine. We have seen this movie before. Always focus on the constructed Enemy to keep all eyes of what is being done by the US with allies to destroy millions of peoples' lives. It is the DNA of this system. "Economic war" too is ratcheted up to ever new levels on Russia to destroy its collective life base, always the underlying target in the society-wrecking program of US-led corporate and NATO globalization. It is a death machine.
Meanwhile the immense assets in line for military-led takeover by the US and allies are excluded from discussion. It is projected instead onto Russia's "expansionists aims", while US-led NATO military operations threaten war on all Russia's East-European borders, ever more military training and the deployment of special forces in coup-state Ukraine, transfer of war instruments and directors, contract-violating sanctions strangling the Russian economy, and even manipulation of global financial and oil markets to "stop the Russian aggressor". Yet not just the bombs and artillery terrorize the victims of Eastern Ukraine There has been a choking off of their foods, electricity, social supports and pensions, medicines, bank accounts, humanitarian aid, and even freedom of movement with mandatory passes and check-points like Israel and unpredictable bombardments of citizens with no military target near.
All the while thunderous denunciations of Putin rise to divert all attention from this one-way war on all fronts as the war crimes multiply by the US-Kiev axis with Harper joining in and warmongering for more. Peace talks are revived in February to "give Russia one more chance" after the Ukranian representative failed to show up at the last talks in Minsk. As peace is hoped for by the peace and hope president, ever more new NATO and US war forces are installed and called for around Russia and the Ukraine "to prevent Russia's continued aggression".
What about Russia's Seizure of Crimea in Violation of International Law?
The war might end if the new truce terms are acted on by Kiev namely that Kiev-governed Ukraine only regains control of East Ukraine "after local elections in Donetsk and Luhansk and after a full political settlement (deadline end of 2015)", plus the further conditions of "humanitarian aid; restoration of full economic links with Donetsk/Luhansk, including welfare payments and banking services; Ukrainian state to help develop Donetsk/Luhansk and regions' co-operation with Russia".
These terms seem minimally reasonable for any democratic social order. But their deprivation and restoration have been long suppressed reasons for the civil war. It is a good sign that they are finally made public, if the media carry them, and finally restored to stop the war, if the US-led Kiev wants to.
Yet so far there is little evidence of either commitment on the US side. So far all there is only talk of "Russia "and "the separatists" breaking the truce, as always. The terms themselves expose the lie that Russia is only after expansion. The terms allow for no such expansion. No Western media will pick up on this, I predict. It explodes the official story they have been running day in and out for a year. Yet still the terms of truce are there for the first time, and the agreement was brokered by Germany and France in the EU. So it is big advance even if it is doomed to violation under the usual false pretexts. What will come out strongly in the days ahead, I predict, will be that "Russia has won by still having marched into Crimea and seized it by force", "Russia has violated the sacred territorial integrity of Ukraine and gotten away with it", "Russia has received a big reward for its aggression", "Russia has been encourage to go on expanding like Hitler" and so on and on. The millstone of Crimea is still around Russia's neck, the war crime of invading another nation's sovereign territory remains, the sanctions must stay on Russia and weapons be provided to Ukraine , and again the justifications for continued economic if not military war remain in place to be repeated ad nauseam. So it is good place to revisit Russia's re-integration with Crimea to consider how much of all this holds up under scrutiny.
"Russia's brutal invasion and seizure of Crimea" is, after all, the core charge on which all others rest as the grounding fact to justify the demonization of Vladmir Putin and Russia in Ukraine. The justification itself is never questioned within Western state and media circles. In Ukraine, any questioning of Russia's crime here any "public denial or justification of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine", may now land one in jail. Informally such siding with Russia or the resistance may lead to execution, with many hundreds have already so murdered by Kiev regime's killer gangs and militias with no Kiev investigations of them.
In the wider world, Russia's re-unification with Crimea with massive electoral support neither fact ever allowed discussion in official state and media circles of the US and its allies let alone Ukraine is sufficient to condemn it to ruin by blanket economic and military attacks. Ever increasing threats of NATO buildups and war preparations as well as war-like embargoes and violations of trade contracts have already happened because of "Russia's armed seizure of Crimea" and "gross violation of international law"
Of course what the official story fails to report is that Crimea has been an historic Russian port and strategic peninsula for centuries since Catherine the Great. The Nazi-like narrative further ignores the fact that Ukraine's brief interregnum occurred by a 1954 decree from Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian leader who was once led the Soviet Union whose laws now apply nowhere else. Observe that this is "the sacred territory" that Canada's toxic PM Harper has sworn will be retaken in pledging "family" loyalty on the September 18 visit of billionaire President Poroshenko. Observe too the patriarchal-mafia intimations.
The claim that Russian soldiers "poured into Crimea to seize it" is, however, perfectly false. In fact, it was a voluntary referendum with demonstrated EU Parliamentarian-observing its overwhelming public support for re-unification with Russia. No evidence suggests that the already-present Russian soldiers involved were not models of presence without abuse and threat. No doubt many Tatars wanted no part, but the soldiers did not arrive by instruction from the Kremlin "to overthrow with brute force". They were already a long time in Crimea under contract with Ukraine and in fewer number than the undenied contract allowed. No-one disputes any of this. Diversion from it is the game, and lies about Putin is the strategy that sustains it. An 83% voter turnout elected re-integration with Russia by over 90%. No counter-evidence disputes this, only unsubstantiated innuendos.
In contrast, Poroshenko's post-coup election in October 2014 was by a fraction of Ukraine's total electorate with most of the Russia-speaking South and the East unable to participate. His October 26 snap parliamentary election was in the conditions of more than a million citizens driven from their homes, oligarch and foreign money pouring in to indoctrinate voters, and anti-communist and anti-Russian mass passions inflamed to terrorizing proportions. Under post-coup law, the Kiev regime's sacred claim to Crimea is criminal to disagree with and liable to social destruction the "new Western democracy and freedom".
Also erased from the official story are the facts that the Supreme Council of Crimea referred to the United Nations Charter and "the right of nations to self-determination" (Article 2, Chapter 1). This is the very right Ukraine invoked in seceding from the USSR in 1991, and the same right invoked for the separation of Kosovo from Serbia which was in fact enforced by NATO bombing. Further erased is the UN International Court ruling in July 2010 that "general international law contains no prohibition on declarations of independence".
Facts and laws are not all that is automatically reversed in the official story and repeated like 2 + 2 =4. The contrast between Russia's governing treatment of Crimea and the coup government's treatment of the Ukraine people is also very revealing. While the oligarchs are setting up the Ukraine people to be permanent debt-slave in exchange for banker-corporate control over the country's life capital, Russia is far advanced in upgrading the public infrastructures and life security of Crimea as fast as possible.
The Underlying Geo-Strategic Pattern
The underlying global pattern is that any organised force standing against NATO-backed corporate globalization is selected for attack and dismemberment. We have seen this from Afghanistan to Syria in the last decade. NATO is the combination of all the white world powers that formerly warred against each other. Now they have a common cause which has switched from the wartime-generated welfare state leading the world to the very polar opposite under the same name disemploying, defunding and skinning everyone alive without private money stocks from Spain and Greece to Ukraine.
The major strategy of rule is to divide the population into warring sides. The Republican Party has no other evident policy in the US, nor does the US itself abroad. So civil war was planned for Ukraine from before 2000 as reported by Germany's former State Secretary for Defence, Willy Wimmer, who has since made public his meeting with the US State Department in Berlin on May 2, 2000 when a map was presented regarding NATO's future expansion to include the dividing of Ukraine into Eastern and Western regions. Five billion dollars of US foreign-operations spending in Ukraine from 2008 (acknowledged to a business audience by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland after the Kiev coup she directed) was then directly invested in mass anti-regime circles and propaganda and financial support to key agents of the eventually violent overthrow. This was not the intention of the mainly peaceful and popular demonstrations before February 2014 against the government of Viktor Yanukovych, a corrupt president in a long line. But a violent coup was opted for instead led by neo-Nazi terror on the ground. The terror was then projected onto the government to justify overthrowing it, and then onto the resistance in the Eastern regions, Russia and Putin as patsies for Western public opinion.
As always in US-orchestrated "regime changes", official and media attention turns to blaming the designated enemy while the catastrophic consequences of the violent overthrow are blinkered out. The Ukraine "regime change" has led to massive bombings of civilians and infrastructures in the East, deliberate starvation of millions of citizens, and armed-force land clearances, murder, torture and rape by neo-Nazi death squads. This large-scale ethnic cleansing' has been altogether screened out of Western state and media reports, while the official story has daily flailed Putin as the villain and the cause of all the problems.
If we look forward and backward from the "weapons of mass destruction of Iraq", the "genocidal plans of the dictator Gadaffi", and "Assad's chemical weapons" as a pretext for bombing another society with major strategic and economic resources to be pried open, we see that the pretexts always turn out to be false. But in every case a society formerly independent of US dominance and doing better than neighbours is torn apart and opened to transnational corporate invasion.
Thus not long after US-led bombing and destroying of Iraq and Libya on false pretexts, another story for more war and bombing arose. In Syria which followed a similar pattern, president Assad was "gassing his own people" and "violating international law". This story went all the way to a White House plan to bomb Syria's civilian infrastructures to correct the problem, as in Iraq and Libya - and as in Ukraine if the war party had won. Even with Assad's "war crime", the truth found by multiple analysis was that "kitchen sarin" manufactured in Turkey and crude-missile lobbed by the al Nusra jihadists allied with the US and funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar (the precursor of ISIL) was the source of the gas massacre as Seymour Hersh finally made public. But neither this fact nor the plan to bomb Syria disappeared. The mass media including the New York Times continue to broadcast "Assad's use of chemical weapons against his people" while erasing Hersh's research from the record.
As long as all fault is projected onto the official enemy and the facts repressed, there is no release from the perpetual war for economic and military resources for more global strategic control and transnational corporate exploitation. Unlike British imperialism, there is no advance of civilisation for the ruined society. Life capital development is reversed, and socioeconomic genocide is the effective outcome.
How the Ukraine Was Turned Into Civil War
The initial demands from the Russian-speaking Donbass region of East Ukraine centred in Donetsk were not radical. They were rather like the demands of francophone Quebec that have been successfully negotiated in Canada minority language rights and federal status allowing substantially independent government. Yet minority language rights were immediately revoked by the coup leaders. Past federalist status for the mainly Russia-speaking region was warred upon from the start with a new governor appointed from Kiev. Neo-Nazi gangs then started terrorizing Russian speakers in Ukraine as soon as the coup was completed with, for example, mass murders of hundreds of unionists and Victory Day celebrants within months.
Bear in mind that the East Ukraine resistance was from the same region that resisted the Nazi invasion in the 1940's. Now as then, only one side bombed civilians, deployed starvation tactics, and mass-murdered civilians. The official story is that Putin and Russia have led all the criminal aggression in Ukraine, but the coup murders and atrocities, the indiscriminate military bombing, and the embargos against income and sustenance all came from the US-led West Ukraine side. They had already forced over one million people to flee their homes by September of 2014. This was documented by the UN High Commission for Refugees before last summer was over, but unreported by the mass media or Western leaders who only bayed insults and threats at Putin. .
Violent overthrow of a people's elected government, bloody mass murders by regime street gangs, criminal bombing and shelling of civilians and social infrastructures, mass starvation policies, blaming victims as "terrorists" if they resist, anti-communist hatred a moving passion throughout (and hushed-up anti-Semitism), and a regulation on hand for the slave labour of Eastern citizens all the ignored facts eerily recall the Nazi invasion and nationalist Ukrainian collaboration in genocidal operations decades before. Certainly, a generic pattern remains constant across contemporary history. One society after another is torn apart. Not only is the society decapitated, as in Ukraine to begin the crisis, or Libya or Iraq, or as demanded in Syria. Its civil bonds are rent asunder, its social life supports are stripped, its productive base is run down or destroyed, its government is made a strategic vassal and permanent debt servant to foreign banks, and its environment and resources are hollowed out.
We may recall that Russia's "plot to rule the world" was the storyline to explain the Cold War, with few noticing that world rule went the opposite way once Russia had its GDP halved in the grand capitalist experiment under the drunk Boris Yeltsin. This helps to explain why the US-led coup d'etat in Ukraine for another neo-liberal feeding frenzy has been resisted by force of arms. Before the coup, as US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland told a business meeting afterwards, $5 billion of public money was invested to turn Ukraine into US control. The method was a familiar one ever-rising civil destabilization and US alliance with internal extreme-right parties, in this case, parties descended from Ukrainian Nazis supporting Hitler, Pravi (Right) Sektor and Svoboda ("Freedom", formerly "Social Nationalist Party").
Although Europe was near brokering a peace agreement, Nuland went ahead with the coup, hand-picking Arseniy Yatsenyuk as putsch prime minister and instructing him to consult with Oleh Tyahnybok (whose Nazi salute is well known on the Internet) "at least four times a week". When reminded of the EU peace talks, she responded in undenied leaked reply, "Fuck the EU". This US-orchestrated coup then occurred after three days of sniper murder and chaos were falsely blamed on the elected government to overthrow it.
In fact, the sniper murders of 21 people in Kiev in February 2014 which precipitated the bloody coup and started the civil war were part of the larger strategic logistics. The EU's Foreign Minister's verified and recorded conversation with Foreign Minister, Urmas Paet of Estonia, speaks for itself. He reported that all 21 murders were (his words) by "the same type of bullets" and from "the same handwriting" which could only be from "the new coalition [in Kiev] which does not want to investigate what happened". Nor did any Western press.
Reverse projection is the master psych-op at work. Blame the enemy for what the US is doing as the reason to attack it. Even if the evidence shows a big lie in motion, only a few know it and it will not be reported in the corporate media. In fact, such serial mass murder as the Kiev sniper killings is grounds for prosecution of crimes against humanity under international law and prosecution by the International Court. But so far such due process of law and criminal prosecution have been deployed only to serve the unspoken global agenda while war-drums beat against all those who draw a line against it on the ground. The deprived become the Enemy whenever they fight back.
The post-coup words of former "Orange revolutionary" and gas oligarch leader of the Fatherland Party, Yulia Tymoshenko, are revealing of the mind-set long at work leading the Ukraine and denouncing Russia. When she was released from jail for criminal embezzlement of state property in post-coup Kiev, she said: "Take up arms and go and wipe outthese damn katsaps" [Russian minority] - so that not even scorched earth would be left of Russia." The Russian-speaking city of Luhansk was levelled months later by artillery, rockets and air-bombing of civilian centres, schools, hospitals and water and electricity infrastructures, with 350,000 forced to flee from this one city alone by the Fall.
The Global Stakes of the Ukraine Crisis
Harper rule in Canada has joined the war-mongering genocidal game in character refusing to respond to any diplomatic correspondence from Russia, blocking information flows, and proclaiming inflammatory falsehoods. The profound common life interests at stake are unnamed by all. Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe and its biggest landmass. Public assets are all on the privatization block. Slash-and-burn budgets are set to service new unpayable debts to foreign banks with ample collateral on tap. Ukraine has large and untapped fracking-gas deposits, and it provides new strategic military control up to Russia's main border and colossally rich natural resources on the other side. Yet the operation of reverse blame goes from Iraq to Libya to Syria to Ukraine to Russia in one society destruction to the next. With one-way pervasive media abuse, cumulatively destructive sanctions, and incremental arming of neo-fascist-led Ukrainian forces, vast global power and treasure are at stake beneath discussion which affect us all.
The collapse of Ukraine's GDP by 60% after 1991 is evidently not enough for the ravenous appetite of US-EU corporate globalization. While mass media and states chorus "Russian brute force" and "what Hitler did back in the 1930's" (Hilary Clinton), reverse projection is as usual the syntax of blame. The fire-bombing of the House of Unions in Odessa by regime gangs (May 2) and again in Mariupol on the anniversary of Victory Day over the Nazis (May 9) were major mass murders without arrest of any of those responsible on site, and all has been unreported in the Western media. Yet PM Yatsenyuk with US support keeps proclaiming "Russia's war to take Ukraine", and the US war party and its Canada servants lap it up. Public amnesia rules by the media selecting out of public view all facts not in the ruling script.
A new truce has now been entered by EU and Russia initiative with terms to resolve the US-orchestrated civil war. All voices of the official story wonder whether "Russia and the separatists" will obey its terms. Yet when we examine the record of international law and agreements, especially life-protective promises and agreements, who do we really need to worry about as a violator of them? The record tells us very plainly.
The US state has refused to ratify the International Criminal Court to uphold the law against war crimes and crimes against humanity, and it has publicly repudiated the Court's right to investigate US criminal violations including the "supreme crime" of initiating a war of aggression (including the Clintons). While the US perpetually invokes international laws to blame others, it repudiates any life-protective law applied to its actions, or its key ally Israel. In truth, the US has systematically undermined virtually all international laws to protect life treaties and conventions against landmines, against biological weapons, against international ballistic missiles, against small arms, against torture, against racism, against arbitrary seizure and imprisonment, against military weather distortions, against biodiversity loss, against climate destabilization, and even international agreements on the rights of children and of women.
The record of US war crimes and crimes against humanity, against human and planetary life itself, is suppressed. It should be foremost in the minds of those observing what happens next in this potential world war situation or perhaps at last non-US resolution.
John McMurtry is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and his work is published and translated from Latin America to Japan. He is the author and editor of the three-volume Philosophy and World Problems published by UNESCO's Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), and his latest book is The Cancer Stage of Capitalism/from Crisis to Cure.

[Lauren Johnson]

by Ivan Lizan for Odnako

Translated by Robin @ The Saker of the Vineyard

U.S. Gen. "Ben" Hodges' statement that within four or five years Russia could develop the capability to wage war simultaneously on three fronts is not only an acknowledgment of the Russian Federation's growing military potential but also a promise that Washington will obligingly ensure that all three fronts are right on the borders of the Russian Federation.

In the context of China's inevitable rise and the soon-to-worsen financial crisis, with the concomitant bursting of asset bubbles, the only way for the United States to maintain its global hegemony is to weaken its opponents. And the only way to achieve that goal is to trigger chaos in the republics bordering Russia.

That is why Russia will inevitably enter a period of conflicts and crises on its borders.

And so the first front in fact already exists in the Ukraine, the second will most likely be between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and the third, of course, will be opened in Central Asia.

If the war in Ukraine leads to millions of refugees, tens of thousands of deaths, and the destruction of cities, defrosting the Karabakh conflict will completely undermine Russia's entire foreign policy in the Caucasus.

Every city in Central Asia is under threat of explosions and attacks. So far this "up-and-coming front" has attracted the least media coverage Novorossiya dominates on national television channels, in newspapers, and on websites , but this theater of war could become one of the most complex after the conflict in the Ukraine.

A subsidiary of the Caliphate under Russia's belly

The indisputable trend in Afghanistan and the key source of instability in the region is to an alliance between the Taliban and the Islamic State. Even so, the formation of their union is in its early days, references to it are scarce and fragmentary, and the true scale of the activities of the IS emissaries is unclear, like an iceberg whose tip barely shows above the surface of the water.

But it has been established that IS agitators are active in Pakistan and in Afghanistan's southern provinces, which are controlled by the Taliban. But, in this case, the first victim of chaos in Afghanistan is Pakistan, which at the insistence of, and with help from, the United States nurtured the Taliban in the 1980s. That project has taken on a life of its own and is a recurring nightmare for Islamabad, which has decided to establish a friendlier relationship China and Russia. This trend can be seen in the Taliban's attacks on Pakistani schools, whose teachers now have the right to carry guns, regular arrests of terrorists in the major cities, and the start of activities in support of tribes hostile to the Taliban in the north.

The latest legislative development in Pakistan is a constitutional amendment to expand military court jurisdiction [over civilians]. Throughout the country, terrorists, Islamists and their sympathizers are being detained. In the northwest alone, more than 8,000 arrests have been made, including members of the clergy. Religious organizations have been banned and IS emissaries are being caught.

Since the Americans do not like putting all their eggs in one basket, they will provide support to the government in Kabul, which will allow them to remain in the country legitimately, and at the same time to the Taliban, which is transforming itself into IS. The outcome will be a state of chaos in which the Americans will not formally take part; instead, they will sit back on their military bases, waiting to see who wins. And then Washington will provide assistance to the victor. Note that its security services have been supporting the Taliban for a long time and quite effectively: some of the official security forces and police in Afghanistan are former Taliban and Mujahideen.

Method of destruction

The first way to destabilize Central Asia is to create problems on the borders, along with the threat that Mujahideen will penetrate the region. The testing of the neighbours has already started; problems have arisen in Turkmenistan, which has even had to ask Kabul to hold large-scale military operations in the border provinces. Tajikistan has forced the Taliban to negotiate the release of the border guards it abducted, and the Tajik border service reports that there is a large group of Mujahideen on its borders.

In general, all the countries bordering Afghanistan have stepped up their border security.

The second way is to send Islamists behind the lines. The process has already begun: the number of extremists in Tajikistan alone grew three-fold last year; however, even though they are being caught, it obviously will not be feasible to catch all of them. Furthermore, the situation is aggravated by the return of migrant workers from Russia, which will expand the recruiting base. If the stream of remittances from Russia dries up, the outcome may be popular discontent and managed riots.

Kyrgyz expert Kadir Malikov reports that $70 million has been allocated to the IS military group Maverenahr, which includes representatives of all the Central Asian republics, to carry out acts of terrorism in the region. Special emphasis is placed on the Fergana Valley as the heart of Central Asia.

Another point of vulnerability is Kyrgyzstan's parliamentary elections, scheduled for this fall. The initiation of a new set of color revolutions will lead to chaos and the disintegration of countries.

Self-supporting wars

Waging war is expensive, so the destabilization of the region must be self-supporting or at least profitable for the U.S. military-industrial complex. And in this area Washington has had some success: it has given Uzbekistan 328 armored vehicles that Kiev had requested for its war with Novorossiya. At first glance, the deal isn't profitable because the machines were a gift, but in reality Uzbekistan will be tied to U.S. spare parts and ammunition. Washington made a similar decision on the transfer of equipment and weapons to Islamabad.

But the United States has not been successful in its attempts to impose its weapons systems on India: the Indians have not signed any contracts, and Obama was shown Russian military hardware when he attended a military parade.

Thus the United States is drawing the countries in the region into war with its own protégés the Taliban and Islamic State and at the same time is supplying its enemies with weapons.

***

So 2015 will be marked by preparations for widespread destabilization in Central Asia and the transformation of AfPak into an Islamic State subsidiary on the borders of Russia, India, China, and Iran. The start of full-scale war, which will inevitably follow once chaos engulfs the region, will lead to a bloodbath in the "Eurasian Balkans," automatically involving more than a third of the world's population and almost all the United States' geopolitical rivals. It's an opportunity Washington will find too good to miss.

Russia's response to this challenge has to be multifaceted: involving the region in the process of Eurasian integration, providing military, economic, and political assistance, working closely with its allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS, strengthening the Pakistani army, and of course assisting with the capture of the bearded servants of the Caliphate.

But the most important response should be the accelerated modernization of its armed forces as well as those of its allies and efforts to strengthen the Collective Security Treaty Organization and give it the right to circumvent the highly inefficient United Nations.

The region is extremely important: if Ukraine is a fuse of war, then Central Asia is a munitions depot. If it blows up, half the continent will be hit.

[Magda Hassan]

The region is extremely important: if Ukraine is a fuse of war, then Central Asia is a munitions depot. If it blows up, half the continent will be hit.

And the US is the arsonist on the loose.

[Magda Hassan]

Military Contractor Hiring 'Role Players of Ukrainian and/or Russian Ethnicity' for US Marine Corps Training

Do you speak Russian or Ukrainian? The US Marine Corps wants you (for $19/hour)!


RI Staff
sounds harmless Thu, Mar 5 | 1312 11


[URL="http://russia-insider.com/crowdfunding"]

[/URL]





What are they training for?




s
Sun, Mar 1 | 2575 10




Via Orange County (CA) Craigslist:

GTS (Glacier Technology Solutions LLC) - We are military contractors working directly with the US Marine Corps assisting them with their immersive simulation training program.
Currently, we are looking for role players of Ukrainian and/or Russian ethnicity and language skills. Need MEN ranging 18-65 years of age.
This is temporary, part time, on-call work based on need and availability.


At the moment, we are staffing for an upcoming training to take place on:
March 29-31, 2015.

The scheduled hours will vary from 8-12 hours per working day.
Compensation is $15.17/hr. plus another $4.02/hr. Health and Welfare benefit for up to 40 hours of work in a workweek. (Overtime rates will be paid if necessary).
Register for work at:
www.Shiftboard.com/wforce
For further questions feel free to call. We look forward to meeting, and sharing this fun and unique work experience with you.

Sounds legit.






http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/05/...m=facebook

[Magda Hassan]

Breedlove's Bellicosity: Berlin Alarmed by Aggressive NATO Stance on Ukraine

By SPIEGEL Staff
AP
Top NATO commander General Philip Breedlove has raised hackles in Germany with his public statements about the Ukraine crisis.



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.


It was quiet in eastern Ukraine last Wednesday. Indeed, it was another quiet day in an extended stretch of relative calm. The battles between the Ukrainian army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk cease-fire wasn't holding perfectly, but it was holding.

On that same day, General Philip Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, stepped before the press in Washington. Putin, the 59-year-old said, had once again "upped the ante" in eastern Ukraine -- with "well over a thousand combat vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery" having been sent to the Donbass. "What is clear," Breedlove said, "is that right now, it is not getting better. It is getting worse every day." German leaders in Berlin were stunned. They didn't understand what Breedlove was talking about. And it wasn't the first time. Once again, the German government, supported by intelligence gathered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).
The pattern has become a familiar one. For months, Breedlove has been commenting on Russian activities in eastern Ukraine, speaking of troop advances on the border, the amassing of munitions and alleged columns of Russian tanks. Over and over again, Breedlove's numbers have been significantly higher than those in the possession of America's NATO allies in Europe. As such, he is playing directly into the hands of the hardliners in the US Congress and in NATO.
The German government is alarmed. Are the Americans trying to thwart European efforts at mediation led by Chancellor Angela Merkel? Sources in the Chancellery have referred to Breedlove's comments as "dangerous propaganda." Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier even found it necessary recently to bring up Breedlove's comments with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.
The 'Super Hawk'
But Breedlove hasn't been the only source of friction. Europeans have also begun to see others as hindrances in their search for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. First and foremost among them is Victoria Nuland, head of European affairs at the US State Department. She and others would like to see Washington deliver arms to Ukraine and are supported by Congressional Republicans as well as many powerful Democrats.
Indeed, US President Barack Obama seems almost isolated. He has thrown his support behind Merkel's diplomatic efforts for the time being, but he has also done little to quiet those who would seek to increase tensions with Russia and deliver weapons to Ukraine. Sources in Washington say that Breedlove's bellicose comments are first cleared with the White House and the Pentagon. The general, they say, has the role of the "super hawk," whose role is that of increasing the pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.

Getty Images
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama after a Feb. 9 meeting in Washington: Increasing pressure on America's more reserved trans-Atlantic partners.


A mixture of political argumentation and military propaganda is necessary. But for months now, many in the Chancellery simply shake their heads each time NATO, under Breedlove's leadership, goes public with striking announcements about Russian troop or tank movements. To be sure, neither Berlin's Russia experts nor BND intelligence analysts doubt that Moscow is supporting the pro-Russian separatists. The BND even has proof of such support. But it is the tone of Breedlove's announcements that makes Berlin uneasy. False claims and exaggerated accounts, warned a top German official during a recent meeting on Ukraine, have put NATO -- and by extension, the entire West -- in danger of losing its credibility.
There are plenty of examples. Just over three weeks ago, during the cease-fire talks in Minsk, the Ukrainian military warned that the Russians -- even as the diplomatic marathon was ongoing -- had moved 50 tanks and dozens of rockets across the border into Luhansk. Just one day earlier, US Lieutenant General Ben Hodges had announced "direct Russian military intervention."
Senior officials in Berlin immediately asked the BND for an assessment, but the intelligence agency's satellite images showed just a few armored vehicles. Even those American intelligence officials who supply the BND with daily situation reports were much more reserved about the incident than Hodges was in his public statements. One intelligence agent says it "remains a riddle until today" how the general reached his conclusions.
Much More Cautious
"The German intelligence services generally appraise the threat level much more cautiously than the Americans do," an international military expert in Kiev confirmed.
At the beginning of the crisis, General Breedlove announced that the Russians had assembled 40,000 troops on the Ukrainian border and warned that an invasion could take place at any moment. The situation, he said, was "incredibly concerning." But intelligence officials from NATO member states had already excluded the possibility of a Russian invasion. They believed that neither the composition nor the equipment of the troops was consistent with an imminent invasion.
The experts contradicted Breedlove's view in almost every respect. There weren't 40,000 soldiers on the border, they believed, rather there were much less than 30,000 and perhaps even fewer than 20,000. Furthermore, most of the military equipment had not been brought to the border for a possible invasion, but had already been there prior to the beginning of the conflict. Furthermore, there was no evidence of logistical preparation for an invasion, such as a field headquarters.
Breedlove, though, repeatedly made inexact, contradictory or even flat-out inaccurate statements. On Nov. 18, 2014, he told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that there were "regular Russian army units in eastern Ukraine." One day later, he told the website of the German newsmagazine Stern that they weren't fighting units, but "mostly trainers and advisors."
He initially said there were "between 250 and 300" of them, and then "between 300 and 500." For a time, NATO was even saying there were 1,000 of them.
The fact that NATO has no intelligence agency of its own plays into Breedlove's hands. The alliance relies on intelligence gathered by agents from the US, Britain, Germany and other member states. As such, SACEUR has a wide range of information to choose from.
Influencing Breedlove
On Nov. 12, during a visit to Sofia, Bulgaria, Breedlove reported that "we have seen columns of Russian equipment -- primarily Russian tanks, Russian artillery, Russian air defense systems and Russian combat troops -- entering into Ukraine." It was, he noted, "the same thing that OSCE is reporting." But the OSCE had only observed military convoys within eastern Ukraine. OSCE observers had said nothing about troops marching in from Russia.
Breedlove sees no reason to revise his approach. "I stand by all the public statements I have made during the Ukraine crisis," he wrote to SPIEGEL in response to a request for a statement accompanied by a list of his controversial claims. He wrote that it was to be expected that assessments of NATO's intelligence center, which receives information from all 33 alliance members in addition to partner states, doesn't always match assessments made by individual nations. "It is normal that not everyone agrees with the assessments that I provide," he wrote.
He says that NATO's strategy is to "release clear, accurate and timely information regarding ongoing events." He also wrote that: "As an alliance based on the fundamental values of freedom and democracy, our response to propaganda cannot be more propaganda. It can only be the truth."
The German government, meanwhile, is doing what it can to influence Breedlove. Sources in Berlin say that conversations to this end have taken place in recent weeks. But there are many at NATO headquarters in Brussels who are likewise concerned about Breedlove's statements. On Tuesday of last week, Breedlove's public appearances were an official item on the agenda of the North Atlantic Council's weekly lunch meeting. Several ambassadors present criticized Breedlove and expressed their incredulity at some of the commander's statements.
The government in Berlin is concerned that Breedlove's statements could harm the West's credibility. The West can't counter Russian propaganda with its own propaganda, "rather it must use arguments that are worthy of a constitutional state." Berlin sources also say that it has become conspicuous that Breedlove's controversial statements are often made just as a step forward has been made in the difficult negotiations aimed at a political resolution. Berlin sources say that Germany should be able to depend on its allies to support its efforts at peace.
Pressure on Obama
German foreign policy experts are united in their view of Breedlove as a hawk. "I would prefer that Breedlove's comments on political questions be intelligent and reserved," says Social Democrat parliamentarian Niels Annen, for example. "Instead, NATO in the past has always announced a new Russian offensive just as, from our point of view, the time had come for cautious optimism." Annen, who has long specialized in foreign policy, has also been frequently dissatisfied with the information provided by NATO headquarters. "We parliamentarians were often confused by information regarding alleged troop movements that were inconsistent with the information we had," he says.
The pressure on Obama from the Republicans, but also from his own political camp, is intense. Should the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine not hold, it will likely be difficult to continue refusing Kiev's requests for shipments of so-called "defensive weapons." And that would represent a dramatic escalation of the crisis. Moscow has already begun issuing threats in anticipation of such deliveries. "Any weapons deliveries to Kiev will escalate the tensions and would unhinge European security," Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's national security council, told the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on Wednesday.
Although President Obama has decided for the time being to give European diplomacy a chance, hawks like Breedlove or Victoria Nuland are doing what they can to pave the way for weapons deliveries. "We can fight against the Europeans, fight against them rhetorically," Nuland said during a private meeting of American officials on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference at the beginning of February.

AP
US diplomat Victoria Nuland: Paving the way for weapons deliveries.


In reporting on the meeting later, the German tabloid Bild reported that Nuland referred to the chancellor's early February trip to Moscow for talks with Putin as "Merkel's Moscow stuff." No wonder, then, that people in Berlin have the impression that important power brokers in Washington are working against the Europeans. Berlin officials have noticed that, following the visit of American politicians or military leaders in Kiev, Ukrainian officials are much more bellicose and optimistic about the Ukrainian military's ability to win the conflict on the battlefield. "We then have to laboriously bring the Ukrainians back onto the course of negotiations," said one Berlin official. Nuland Diplomacy
Nuland, who is seen as a possible secretary of state should the Republicans win back the White House in next year's presidential election, is an important voice in US policy concerning Ukraine and Russia. She has never sought to hide her emotional bond to Russia, even saying "I love Russia." Her grandparents immigrated to the US from Bessarabia, which belonged to the Russian empire at the time. Nuland speaks Russian fluently.
She is also very direct. She can be very keen and entertaining, but has been known to take on an undiplomatic tone -- and has not always been wrong to do so. Mykola Asarov, who was prime minister under toppled Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, recalls that Nuland basically blackmailed Yanukovych in order to prevent greater bloodshed in Kiev during the Maidan protests. "No violence against the protesters or you'll fall," Nuland told him according to Asarov. She also, he said, threatened tough economic and political sanctions against both Ukraine and the country's leaders. According to Asarov, Nuland said that, were violence used against the protesters on Maidan Square, information about the money he and his cronies had taken out of the country would be made public.
Nuland has also been open -- at least internally -- about her contempt for European weakness and is famous for having said "Fuck the EU" during the initial days of the Ukraine crisis in February of 2014. Her husband, the neo-conservative Robert Kagan, is, after all, the originator of the idea that Americans are from Mars and Europeans, unwilling as they are to realize that true security depends on military power, are from Venus.
When it comes to the goal of delivering weapons to Ukraine, Nuland and Breedlove work hand-in-hand. On the first day of the Munich Security Conference, the two gathered the US delegation behind closed doors to discuss their strategy for breaking Europe's resistance to arming Ukraine.
On the seventh floor of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in the heart of Munich, it was Nuland who began coaching. "While talking to the Europeans this weekend, you need to make the case that Russia is putting in more and more offensive stuff while we want to help the Ukrainians defend against these systems," Nuland said. "It is defensive in nature although some of it has lethality."
Training Troops?
Breedlove complemented that with the military details, saying that moderate weapons aid was inevitable -- otherwise neither sanctions nor diplomatic pressure would have any effect. "If we can increase the cost for Russia on the battlefield, the other tools will become more effective," he said. "That's what we should do here."

In Berlin, top politicians have always considered a common position vis-a-vis Russia as a necessary prerequisite for success in peace efforts. For the time being, that common front is still holding, but the dispute is a fundamental one -- and hinges on the question of whether diplomacy can be successful without the threat of military action. Additionally, the trans-Atlantic partners also have differing goals. Whereas the aim of the Franco-German initiative is to stabilize the situation in Ukraine, it is Russia that concerns hawks within the US administration. They want to drive back Moscow's influence in the region and destabilize Putin's power. For them, the dream outcome would be regime change in Moscow. A massive troop training range is located in Yavoriv in western Ukraine near the Polish border. During Soviet times, it served as the westernmost military district in the Soviet Union. Since 1998, though, it has been used for joint exercises by Ukrainian forces together with the United States and NATO. Yavoriv is also the site where US soldiers want to train members of the Ukrainian National Guard for their future battle against the separatists. According to the Pentagon's plans, American officers would train the Ukrainians on how to use American artillery-locating radar devices. At least that's what US Army in Europe commander Lt. Gen. Hodges announced in January.
The training was actually supposed to start at the beginning of March. Before it began, however, President Obama temporarily put it on hold in order to give the ceasefire agreement reached in Minsk a chance. Still, the hawks remain confident that they will soon come a step closer to their goal. On Tuesday, Hodges said during an appearance in Berlin that he expects the training will still begin at some point this month.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl...22193.html

[Lauren Johnson]

This article by from the the obvious reasons belongs in the Syria and ISIS threads. But I am putting it in this thread because of the map at the end which points to Russia.

Drang nach Osten. Russia goes under and all the other pieces fall into place.

March 6, 2015 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - Corporate-financier interests driving US foreign policy have long ago conspired to use Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremist forces to create a Pan-Arabian mercenary force with which to fight their enemies. Warned about in 2007 in a prophetic 9-page report by veteran journalist, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh, then exposed through documented evidence over the course of the past four years, and now incontrovertibly unfolding before the world's eyes, this criminal conspiracy against world peace and all of humanity can be seen in its full, horrific form.

The war special interests in the United States along with its co-conspirators plan to wage across the planet encompasses not only the Middle East and North Africa, but also Russia, China, and beyond. It threatens the lives, peace, and prosperity of all on Earth. If it is not exposed, and the special interests driving it not undermined, uprooted, and purged from humanity, none will escape the dark days that inevitably lie ahead.

The Unheeded Warning

It was in 2007, in the New Yorker, that veteran journalist Seymour Hersh published his lengthy, prophetic report, "

The Redirection Is the Administration's new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?

" Within it, Washington, Riyadh, and Tel Aviv were exposed amidst a criminal conspiracy to use sectarian extremists in a proxy war against Iran and its allies in Syria and Lebanon. The impending conflict was described as "cataclysmic."

The report stated explicitly that (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia's government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

And because the conspiracy was exposed during the administration of US President George W. Bush, attempts by the establishment to compartmentalize current, and increasingly more obvious support by the US of Al Qaeda and the so-called "Islamic State" by characterizing it as a misstep or even "treason" by the administration of US President Barack Obama, is merely a political ploy. It is clear that instead, the policy and its execution across two supposedly diametrically opposed political parties, is an example of "continuity of agenda."

And while the political "right" in the United States in particular feigns outrage and suspicion over the Obama administration's ties and support for sectarian extremist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood and factions with direct ties to Al Qaeda, it was exposed in Hersh's 2007 article that the Bush administration had in fact initiated this support. Obama keeping the Oval Office's chair warm while this policy continues.

Hersh's report would state:

There is evidence that the Administration's redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, "The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement." He said that Khaddam, who now lives in Paris, was getting money from Saudi Arabia, with the knowledge of the White House. (In 2005, a delegation of the Front's members met with officials from the National Security Council, according to press reports.) A former White House official told me that the Saudis had provided members of the Front with travel documents.[Walid] Jumblatt said he understood that the issue was a sensitive one for the White House. "I told Cheney that some people in the Arab world, mainly the Egyptians"whose moderate Sunni leadership has been fighting the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for decades"won't like it if the United States helps the Brotherhood. But if you don't take on Syria we will be face to face in Lebanon with Hezbollah in a long fight, and one we might not win."

This support would manifest itself both in Egypt and Syria, where the Muslim Brotherhood, its political networks, and armed groups built within them, served as the foundation of unrest and violence that took place under the cover of regional US-engineered political subversion often referred to as the "Arab Spring." In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood would succeed temporarily in seizing power. In Syria, the Brotherhood would trigger violence and eventually devastating, protracted war.

Perhaps throughout Hersh's 9-page report, the most sobering warning came from a former CIA agent in Lebanon. Hersh's report would state:

Robert Baer, a former longtime C.I.A. agent in Lebanon, has been a severe critic of Hezbollah and has warned of its links to Iranian-sponsored terrorism. But now, he told me, "we've got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it's going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites.

And this is precisely what is now unfolding all across the Middle East and North Africa. A cataclysmic conflict driven by sectarian extremists waging war on minority groups across the region, with only Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah left to defend them - and with the United States and its allies doing everything imaginable to stop them from doing so.

Clearly the "French and the United States," cannot reprise their role as protectors of the region's minorities, since they have openly thrown in their lot - as predicted by Hersh in 2007 and as is evident today - with Al Qaeda and ISIS.

ISIS is Al Qaeda - And America is Backing them Both

Attempts to compartmentalize political responsibility for the rise and perpetuation of extremists across the Arab World is not the only game being played by Western special interests. They have also attempted to compartmentalize the extremists themselves.

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[TD="class: tr-caption, align: left"]Images: Terrorists operating in Syria billed as "moderates" by the US have received weapons, cash, and other forms of support from the West. All of these groups are now admittedly are Al Qaeda, fully armed with US weapons and in possession of US cash and equipment. [/TD]
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In Syria, Al Qaeda in the form of Jabhat al-Nusra, has been the prevailing armed faction throughout the conflict, beginning in 2011. This isn't according to the Syrian government and "Bashar al Assad's propaganda," this is according to the US State Department itself which listed them as a foreign terrorist organization in 2012. In their official statement, "Terrorist Designations of the al-Nusrah Front as an Alias for al-Qa'ida in Iraq," they reported:

Since November 2011, al-Nusrah Front has claimed nearly 600 attacks ranging from more than 40 suicide attacks to small arms and improvised explosive device operations in major city centers including Damascus, Aleppo, Hamah, Dara, Homs, Idlib, and Dayr al-Zawr. During these attacks numerous innocent Syrians have been killed. Through these attacks, al-Nusrah has sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes. AQI emir Abu Du'a is in control of both AQI and al-Nusrah. Abu Du'a was designated by the State Department under E.O. 13224 on October 3, 2011, and by the United Nations under UN Security Council Resolution 1267 on October 5, 2011. Abu Du'a also issues strategic guidance to al-Nusrah's emir, Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani, and tasked him to begin operations in Syria.

For readers who may have believed the US State Department's claims that "al-Nusrah has sought to portray itself as part of the legitimate Syrian opposition while it is, in fact, an attempt by AQI to hijack the struggles of the Syrian people for its own malign purposes," they may be shocked to discover that now, apparently, al-Nusra is considered by the US and its allies among the "legitimate Syrian opposition."

In order to make this possible, Nusra is carrying out a public relations campaign with the aid of American and European media monopolies - including Reuters who in their report titled, "Insight - Syria's Nusra Front may leave Qaeda to form new entity," would claim:

Leaders of Syria's Nusra Front are considering cutting their links with al Qaeda to form a new entity backed by some Gulf states trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, sources said. Sources within and close to Nusra said that Qatar, which enjoys good relations with the group, is encouraging the group to go ahead with the move, which would give Nusra a boost in funding.

Of course, Nusra is already harbored, aided, armed, and abetted by NATO, using NATO territory in Turkey as a base of operations. And while Reuters attempts to portray Nusra as "the enemy of our enemy," claiming the rebranding and boost in funding would help them fight the "Islamic State," by all accounts Nusra and ISIS are already one in the same.

What's worse is that this trick of portraying Al Qaeda as a bifurcated movement at odds with itself to compartmentalize and use the same organization for multiple, and at times, opposing objectives, was
already seen during the US occupation of Iraq.

The New York Times in its article, "Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says," would admit:

Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.The ruse, Bergner said, was devised by Abu Ayub al-Masri, the Egyptian-born leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, who was trying to mask the dominant role that foreigners play in that insurgent organization.The ploy was to invent Baghdadi, a figure whose very name establishes his Iraqi pedigree, install him as the head of a front organization called the Islamic State of Iraq and then arrange for Masri to swear allegiance to him. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, sought to reinforce the deception by referring to Baghdadi in his video and Internet statements.

Indeed, the "Islamic State in Iraq" was fictional. It was Al Qaeda all along, just like the "Islamic State in Syria and Iraq" or "ISIS" is also fictional, a functionary of Al Qaeda and the foreign interests sponsoring it.

The reality of this couldn't be illustrated any more perfectly than with the case of Libyan terrorist Abdelhakim Belhadj. Having been a member of the "Libyan Islamic Fighting Group" or LIFG for decades, he would literally travel to Afghanistan where he would fight American soldiers in the wake of 9/11. He was even captured and enrolled in the United States' infamous "rendition program." Upon release from prison in Libya, he would promptly organize and lead armed rebellion against the government Muammar Qaddafi, with extensive NATO arms, cash, and even air cover.

A 2007 West Point Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) report examining the demographics of foreign fighters caught in Iraq fighting then occupying US troops would reveal that the NATO-backed rebels in Libya led by Belhaj were in fact fighters drawn from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) listed by both the US State Department and UK Home Office as a foreign terrorist organization.

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[TD="class: tr-caption, align: left"]Image: US Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham pose with senior Al Qaeda leader Abdulhakim Belhaj, after NATO delivered the nation of Libya to him and his terrorist organization in 2011. Belhaj is now reportedly operating under the banner of ISIS. [/TD]
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In essence then, the United States and its NATO partners knowingly and willfully handed the nation of Libya and its people over to Al Qaeda. Despite Belhaj's documented terrorist past and present, US politicians would meet with him, showering upon him accolades, praise, and continued political and military support. Among these politicians were US Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham who met and literally shook Belhaj's hand while standing upon the ruins of Libya.

That McCain and Graham are both Republicans supporting terrorism, alongside a Democrat US President also allegedly supporting terrorism, illustrates perfectly that special interests own and control both sides of the political aisle, using opposing rhetoric to appeal members on either side, while both sides carry forward the exact same agenda.

More recently, US news sources claimed Belhaj was now leading Libya's branch of ISIS. The Washington Times would report in an article titled, "U.S. backed rebel reportedly leads Islamic State in Libya," that:

Major news out of Libya as Abdelhakim Belhadj, the former head of the al Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, and a major player in the U.S.-backed overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi, has reportedly joined the Islamic State and is leading its forces there. This according to The Blaze National Security journalist Sara Carter on Twitter, and Fox News' Catherine Herridge in a Fox News report.

Western news sources had reported as early as November of last year that many of the so-called "rebels" in Libya had begun forming under the banner of ISIS. CNN in an article titled, "ISIS comes to Libya," claimed:

The black flag of ISIS flies over government buildings. Police cars carry the group's insignia. The local football stadium is used for public executions. A town in Syria or Iraq? No. A city on the coast of the Mediterranean, in Libya.

Fighters loyal to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria are now in complete control of the city of Derna, population of about 100,000, not far from the Egyptian border and just about 200 miles from the southern shores of the European Union.

The fighters are taking advantage of political chaos to rapidly expand their presence westwards along the coast, Libyan sources tell CNN.

This means that US politicians served a direct role in propping up ISIS in Libya, whether they claim it was incidental rather than intentional - a cautionary tale to be told as these very same politicians attempt a repeat performance in Syria and beyond.

The rebranding of NATO's terrorist proxies in Libya and attempts to literally back and arm Al Qaeda's Nusra front in Syria portend an impending conflict of a scale yet to be seen - one involving Libya's neighbor Egypt, and Syria's neighbor, Iran.

The "Cataclysmic Conflict" Yet to Come

Egypt narrowly escaped subjugation by the West through the very same Muslim Brotherhood networks used to destabilize and destroy Syria. After initially bending to the sociopolitical currents unleashed by the 2011 "Arab Spring," the Egyptian military sprung back, ejecting the Muslim Brotherhood from power amid a military coup.

Egypt's new military-led government moved with merciless lighting speed in suppressing the Muslim Brotherhood domestically. Hundreds of Muslim Brotherhood members, including leaders have been rounded up, tried, and sentenced to death. The military-led government has exhibited zero tolerance both for militant groups within their borders, and street demonstrations agitated by US NGOs and used for cover behind which militants operate.

All of this was carried out, as drastic as many of the measures may seem, with the intention of sparing Egypt the same protracted conflict Syria is now suffering.

The failure of the West's "Arab Spring" putsch with the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its subsequent inability to stoke sufficient unrest from within Egypt's borders has led to the sudden and convenient conjuring of ISIS in neighboring Libya. Already, heinous acts of barbarity have been carried out against Egyptian citizens residing in Libya for the sole purpose of stoking sectarian flames within Egypt's borders.

Egypt has responded by supporting military factions in Libya fighting Belhaj's sectarian extremists, now operating under the banner of ISIS. Egypt has also conducted airstrikes on Libyan territory itself. As NATO's proxies commit to ever bolder acts of provocation, the conflict is set only to expand.

What is to come, and the purpose of unveiling ISIS in Libya, is a torrent of terrorism and militancy, backed by NATO, aimed directly at the Egyptian military and - if possible - into the heart of Egypt itself.

Egypt, with a population of over 80 million people, if made to suffer the same sort of protracted conflict Syria is now suffering at the hands of Western backed terrorists, would cost an immeasurable loss in life and destabilize not only both North Africa and the Middle East - across which Egypt's sphere of influence lies - but also endanger international shipping through the Suez Canal and threaten Europe with an influx of refugees fleeing what would be a war zone of unprecedented modern day dimensions.

Either as part of a strategy to destabilize and destroy Egypt, or to excise from Cairo geopolitical concessions including the abandonment of Syria as well as Egypt's backing amid increasing hostilities toward Iran, the West's use of ISIS in Libya is yet another manifestation of what veteran journalist Seymour Hersh warned about in his 2007 report.

ISIS will form the foundation of a regional mercenary force aimed conveniently at the hearts of each and every one of Wall Street and Washington's enemies, while suspiciously, ISIS spares all of the West's allies.

The ongoing violence in Libya and Syria is only the beginning. Should Egypt and Iran be mired in the same widespread violence, fueled by billions upon billions in cash, equipment, and weapons flowing from all corners of the Earth into the region, the "cataclysmic conflict" warned about in 2007 will finally come to pass.

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[TD="class: tr-caption, align: left"]Image: While NATO is clearly threatening Russia's borders in Ukraine, it is also creating a united front of sectarian extremists that will push through Russia's southern region. This is essentially Adolf Hitler's invasion of Russia, in slow motion, using the methods of 4th generation warfare - Operation Barbarossa and the Afrika Korps accounted for. [/TD]
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It will not end in the Middle East. If successful in establishing hegemony there, the chaos will spread to all corners of the globe. First to southern Russia and western China, then beyond. The question of whether or not one will eventually be affected by this conflict is not a matter of if, but a matter of when.

Uprooting the Conspirators

This is not "Obama's" war. Nor is this a "Republican" or "Neo-Con" war. This is a war for global hegemony waged by the corporations, banks, and institutions upon Wall Street and in Washington that transcend elections and own parties on all sides and in all corners of the current, prevailing political paradigm. Appealing to a political party controlled by these interests is the very definition of futile.

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[TD="class: tr-caption, align: left"]Image: Growing your own food locally can be profitable and satisfying. It is also one of several means of localization with which to undermine and redistribute the immense concentration of unwarranted power and influence enjoyed by the corporate-financier interests driving chaos globally. [/TD]
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In order to undermine and uproot these special interests, these corporations, banks, and institutions must be replaced by local alternatives - on a national level around the planet, and on a provincial, state, and local level within each nation.

It is not merely "Walmart," "Pepsi," or "Exxon" themselves as corporations, but rather the concentration of power, wealth, and influence these corporations collectively represent. Often it is the same board members and financial interests holding stakes in each corporation, and it is this handful of shareholders that in turn, fund policy think tanks behind policy papers engineering wars of aggression, including the current proxy war being waged through "ISIS" and "Al Qaeda."

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[TD="class: tr-caption, align: left"]Image: Hackerspaces are local institutions that pool resources and knowledge
together allowing local communities to develop and employ technology. It
is one of many ways people can begin decentralizing the unwarranted power
and influence being abused by immense corporate-financier monopolies. [/TD]
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Decentralizing these vast monopolies through the creation and proliferation of local alternatives will systematically undermine their capacity to wield the unwarranted power and influence they currently enjoy. Whether it is decentralizing big-retail, big-telecom,big-pharma, or big-auto in general, or targeting specific monopolies likeFacebook, there are already people working around the world to make this happen and simply need more people to leave the perpetual distractions and diversions of global politics, and begin paying into localization.

The alternative media has already proven the power of people turning from consumers and into producers, and the redistribution and balance of power and influence it creates. Imagine tackling all monopolies in a similar manner.

While the conflicts ravaging the Middle East and North Africa seem "remote," the fact that similar chaos is now being sown by NATO on the doorstep of Europe in Ukraine, means that if left unchallenged, it is only a matter of time before these conflicts affect everyone directly, no matter where one lives. Rather than organizing protests or taking up arms in an impossible, fictional future battle against tyranny, decentralizing massive monopolies globally, and building up our communities locally is something we can begin doing today - with something as simple as planting a garden to first reduce our dependency on big-agriculture. In the near future, these activities could become profitable, and before that, certainly satisfying and constructive.

We have nothing to lose by trying, and everything to lose if we don't.

[David Guyatt]

Well, there's the future down the pan. The US will have it's way if it can. "Fuck the EU."

Military Contractor Hiring 'Role Players of Ukrainian and/or Russian Ethnicity' for US Marine Corps Training

Do you speak Russian or Ukrainian? The US Marine Corps wants you (for $19/hour)!


RI Staff
sounds harmless Thu, Mar 5 | 1312 11


[URL="http://russia-insider.com/crowdfunding"]

[/URL]





What are they training for?




s
Sun, Mar 1 | 2575 10




Via Orange County (CA) Craigslist:

GTS (Glacier Technology Solutions LLC) - We are military contractors working directly with the US Marine Corps assisting them with their immersive simulation training program.
Currently, we are looking for role players of Ukrainian and/or Russian ethnicity and language skills. Need MEN ranging 18-65 years of age.
This is temporary, part time, on-call work based on need and availability.


At the moment, we are staffing for an upcoming training to take place on:
March 29-31, 2015.

The scheduled hours will vary from 8-12 hours per working day.
Compensation is $15.17/hr. plus another $4.02/hr. Health and Welfare benefit for up to 40 hours of work in a workweek. (Overtime rates will be paid if necessary).
Register for work at:
www.Shiftboard.com/wforce
For further questions feel free to call. We look forward to meeting, and sharing this fun and unique work experience with you.

Sounds legit.






http://russia-insider.com/en/2015/03/05/...m=facebook