US/NATO War on Russia

[Peter Presland]

"Hear that Mr. Anderson, that is the sound of inevitability".

Aye.

And real fun will be seen when, rather than if, Russia begins a similar dollar de-linking program - because there are lots of other nations ar sound the world anxious to move away from dollar hegemony / American control.

But Uncle won't go down without a fight.

Agreed on both counts - especially the last one which is the one that gives me the horrors.

And it seems that Russia has ALREADY begun to do just that using the Rossiya Bank sanctions as a sort of test bed. There are even those who see those sanctions as EXACTLY what Putin needed. After all, what is he supposed to do if the West starts to interfere with Russia's financial trade settlement systems - roll over for a tummy-tickle??? Despite western populations' ignorance of such things, my guess they will judge Russia's actions reasonable with only the simplest of explanations. I just can't believe the the US has not seen and gamed this though. Are they REALLY that stupid?

Read between the lines of this article. Putin doesn't have the air of a man whistling past the graveyard IMO; rather that of a man who has been presented with just the gift he was looking for by his Western would-be tormentors.

For sure it's a VERY dangerous game being played out though because, as you imply, Dollar hegemony is the US unstated but absolute red-line. They simply will not relinquish it short of using every dirty trick in their vast arsenal of dirty tricks - diplomatic, Intel and (God help us) military.

[David Guyatt]

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How Much War Does Washington Want?

DR PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | MARCH 29, 20145 COMMENTS
The Propaganda That the West Represents the Hope of the World is a Great Lie"America does not at the moment have a functioning democracy." -Former US President Jimmy Carter
I doubt that the Ukraine crisis precipitated by Washington's overthrow of the democratic government is over. Washington has won the propaganda war everywhere outside of Russia and Ukraine itself. Within Ukraine people are aware that the coup has made them worse off. The Crimea has already separated from the US puppet government in Kiev and rejoined Russia. Other parts of Russian Ukraine could follow.
In Kiev itself where the unelected, imposed-by-Washington dictatorial government resides, extreme right-wing Ukrainian nationalists, whose roots go back to fighting for National Socialist Germany, are at work intimidating public prosecutors, media editors, and the US imposed "government" itself. There is an abundance of videos available on the Internet, some made by the extreme nationalists themselves, that clearly reveal the intimidation of the imposed and unelected government installed by Washington..
In Kiev US bribes contend with naked neo-nazi force. Which will prevail?
The murder of ultra-nationalist Right Sector militant leader Myzychko by police of the acting Interior Minister of the American stooge government in Ukraine on March 25 has resulted in another Right Sector leader, Dmitry Yarosh, demanding the resignation of Arsen Avakov, the acting Interior Minister and the arrest of the police who killed Muzychko. Yarosh declared: "We cannot watch silently as the Interior Ministry works to undermine the revolution." Right Sector organizer Roman Koval in Rovno, Ukraine, warned: "We will take revenge on Avakov for the death of our brother."
How this will play out is uncertain at this time. The violence provided by the Right Sector and other ultra-nationalist groups was essential to the success of the Washington-backed coup in overthrowing the elected democratic government. But the Right Sector has emerged as both an embarrassment and a threat to the unelected coup government and to its Washington sponsors who are selling the Washington-installed puppet government as a progressive exercise in democracy. This sell is difficult when ultra-nationalist thugs are beating up the imposed government.
Could civil war break out in Kiev between the Right Sector and the government installed by Washington? We know that the Right Sector was sufficiently organized and disciplined to take over the protests. We don't know how well organized is the Washington puppet government or what force this group has at its disposal. We don't know whether Washington has provided mercenaries to protect the government Washington has installed. It is not clear at this time where the power balance lies between the Right Sector and the US stooge government.
The American, UK, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, EU propaganda machine has blamed Putin for all the trouble. But so far the Russian government has not had to do anything except comply with the self-determination of the people in the Russian areas of Ukraine. Much of Ukraine, as it exists or existed today, consists of Russian territories added to Ukraine by Soviet rulers.
When Ukraine became independent with Russia's agreement when the Soviet Union collapsed, had the Russian territories first been put back into Russia from whence they came, Washington's coup would not have resulted in the same level of crisis.
Instead, under Washington's pressure, the Russian territory was retained by Ukraine, and in compensation Russia was given a 50-year lease on Sevastopol, Russia's Black Sea naval base.
The purpose of the Washington financed and orchestrated coup in Kiev was to put
Ukraine, with its artificial boundaries, into the EU and NATO and to evict Russia from its
warm water port and ring Russia with US missile bases. Washington and its European puppets described this as "bringing democracy to Ukraine."
Ukraine already had democracy, a young one trying to put down roots, and Washington
destroyed it. As Russian President Putin observed, overthrowing a brand new democracy destroys democracy. Washington's coup established for Ukraine the precedent that force and propaganda rule, not democracy.
But Washington cares not for democracy, only for its agenda. And Russia, China, and Iran are in the way.
The neoconservatives, who have controlled US foreign policy since the Clinton regime, concluded that the Soviet collapse meant that History has chosen America as the socio-economic system for the world. They declared the US to be "exceptional" and "indispensable" and above international law. Washington had a free pass to invade, murder, destroy, and dominate. The neoconservative claims of "American exceptionalism" sound like Hitler's claims for the German nation. When the White House sock puppet expressed in a speech the claim of American exceptionalism, Putin replied: "God made us all equal."
Washington's opinion is that the exceptional and indispensable nationthe USis above not only all other nations but also above law. What Washington does is legal. What anyone else does in opposition is illegal.
Washington's intervention in Ukraine has unleashed dark forces. Yulia Tymoshenko, the criminal Ukrainian oligarch, who braids her hair or hair piece over her head like a crown, was released from prison by Washington's stooges and has not stopped putting her foot, or both feet, in her mouth. Her latest in her intercepted and leaked telephone conversation is her declaration that "it's about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn Russians together with their leader." She declared that not even scorched earth should be left where Russia stands.
Tymoshenko was sentenced to prison by Ukrainians, not by Russians. Contrast her extreme language and Russophobia with the calm measured tones of Putin, who reaffirms Russia's interest to continue good relations with Ukraine.
On March 23 Tymoshenko was interviewed by the German newspaper, Bild, a mouthpiece for Washington. The crazed Tymoshenko declared that Putin was even more dangerous than Hitler.
This year 2014 is the 100th anniversary of World War 1. As my Oxford professor, Michael Polanyi, said, this was the war that destroyed Europe. He meant culturally and morally as well as physically. As John Maynard Keynes made clear in his prediction, the propagandistic way in which World War 1 was blamed on Germany and the "peace" that was imposed on Germany set up World War 2.
We are witnesses today to the same kind of propagandistic lies with regard to Russia that caused World War 1. In The Genesis Of The World War, Harry Elmer Barnes quotes the French chief editor of a French account of the organization of propaganda in France during World War 1. The French built a massive building called La Maison de la Presse. In this building images of people were created with hands cut off, tongues torn out, eyes gouged out, and skulls crushed with brains laid bare. These images were then photographed and "sent as unassailable evidence of German atrocities to all parts of the globe, where they did not fail to produce the desired effect." Also provided were "fictitious photographs of bombarded French and Belgian churches, violated graves and monuments and scenes of ruins and desolation. The staging and painting of these scenes were done by the best scene-painters of the Paris Grand Opera."
This vicious propaganda against Germany meant that Germany could be blamed for the war and that all of President Woodrow Wilson's guarantees to Germany of no reparations and no territorial loss if Germany agreed to an armistice could be violated. The propaganda success guaranteed that the peace settlement would be so one-sided as to set up the Second World War.
Russia has observed Washington's strategic moves against Russian national interests and Russian sovereignty for two decades. What does Putin think when he hears the vicious anti-Russian propaganda based 100% in lies?
This is what Putin thinks: The Americans promised Gorbachev that they would not take NATO into Eastern Europe, but the Americans did. The Americans withdrew from the ABM Treaty, which prohibited escalating the arms race with anti-ballistic missile systems. The Americans arranged with Poland to deploy anti-ballistic missile bases on Poland's border with Russia. The Americans tell us the fantastic lie that the purpose of American missile bases in Poland is to protect Europe from non-existent Iranian ICBMs. The Americans change their war doctrine to elevate nuclear weapons from a retaliatory deterrent to a pre-emptive first strike force. The Americans pretend that this change in war doctrine is directed at terrorists, but we know it is directed at Russia. The Americans have financed "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine and hope to do so in the Russian Federation itself. The Americans support the terrorists in Chechnya. The Americans trained and equipped the Georgian military and gave it the green light to attack our peacekeepers in South Ossetia. The Americans have financed the overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine and blame me for the anxiety this caused among Crimeans who on their own volition fled Ukraine and returned to Russia from whence they came. Even Gorbachev said that Khrushchev should never have put Crimea into Ukraine. Solzhenitsyn said that Lenin should not have put Russian provinces into eastern and southern Ukraine. Now I have these Russian provinces agitating to return to Russia, and the Americans are blaming me for the consequences of their own reckless and irresponsible actions.
The Americans say I want to rebuild the Soviet Empire. Yet, the Americans witnessed me depart from Georgia when I had this former Russian province in my hands, thanks to the short-lived war instigated by the Americans.
There is no end to the American lies. I have done everything possible to respond to provocations in a low-key reasonable manner, offering to work things out diplomatically, as has my Foreign Minister Lavrov. But the Americans continue to provoke and to hide their provocations behind lies. The Americans brazenly bring to me a strategic threat in Ukraine. They intend to put Ukraine in NATO, the purpose of which expired with the Soviet collapse. They intend to put more missile bases on Russia's borders, and they intended to evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, its warm water port
Americans have no intention of working anything out. They intend to subjugate Russia. Washington wants Russia powerless, surrounded with ABM bases that degrade our strategic deterrent to uselessness. These Americans will not work with me. They will not listen to me or to Russia's Foreign Minister. They only hear their own call for American hegemony over the world. My only alternative is to prepare for war.
The government of China, having read Washington's war plans for war against China and being fully aware of Washington's "pivot to Asia," in which the "indispensable nation" announced its "safe-guarding of peace" by surrounding China with naval and air bases, understands that it has the same Washington enemy as does Russia.
What the entire world faces, every country, every individual regardless of their political orientation, is a Washington-engineered confrontation with Russia and China. This confrontation is enabled by Washington's bought-and-paid-for European and UK puppet states. Without the cover provided by Europe, Washington's acts of aggression would result in war crimes charges against the government in Washington. The world would not be able to enforce these charges without war, but Washington would be isolated.
The European, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and UK governments have betrayed not only their own peoples but also the peoples of the entire world by lending the support of Western Civilization to Washington's lawlessness.
The propaganda that the West represents the hope of the world is a great lie.
# # # #Paul Craig Roberts, Boiling Frogs Post contributing author, is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has been reporting on executive branch and cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books, and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. Mr. Roberts has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy, and has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations. You can visit his website here.
© PaulCraigRoberts.org

- See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/03/...OChaE.dpuf

[David Guyatt]

Read between the lines of this article. Putin doesn't have the air of a man whistling past the graveyard IMO; rather that of a man who has been presented with just the gift he was looking for by his Western would-be tormentors.

Russians are regarded as the best chess playing nation, and Putin to my mind, has looked several moves ahead.

I wonder if there will be a new Sino Soviet security treaty in the offing soon? To me it would make perfect sense.

For sure it's a VERY dangerous game being played out though because, as you imply, Dollar hegemony is the US unstated but absolute red-line. They simply will not relinquish it short of using every dirty trick in their vast arsenal of dirty tricks - diplomatic, Intel and (God help us) military.[/QUOTE]

I agree entirely. My only hope is that unlinking the dollar can become widespread enough that the US can't take action. Whistling in the wind, I suppose.

This whole US pivot to the east and the continuing hemming in of Russia could have arisen now precisely because the US really fears the end of dollar hegemony is fast approaching?

[Peter Presland]

Russians are regarded as the best chess playing nation, and Putin to my mind, has looked several moves ahead.

I wonder if there will be a new Sino Soviet security treaty in the offing soon? To me it would make perfect sense.

My only hope is that unlinking the dollar can become widespread enough that the US can't take action. Whistling in the wind, I suppose.

This whole US pivot to the east and the continuing hemming in of Russia could have arisen now precisely because the US really fears the end of dollar hegemony is fast approaching?

The Russia/chess US/Poker analogies are fun - and I guess there is a grain of truth to them. But, when it comes to the stakes involved here, I seriously doubt the US-UK in particular have not both looked and gamed many moves ahead too; likewise did not envisage and include Putin's responses to date. The whole thing was started as part of a deeply ingrained existing policy - one that has been at the root of the entire Anglo-US relationship since the end of WWII - and even way back to the first one in its essentials.

What worries me is that there seems to be no sign of the US-UK-NATO moderating its behaviour - quite the contrary in fact. And I don't mean the inane mouthings of the Ashtons, Hagues, Camerons and Obamas either, they really are just improvising from a rigid underlying script with their ability (or lack of it) to do so in a manner that - at the very least - keeps most of the population from open rebellion, determining their personal political fortunes.

If I am right, and I really do HOPE I am not, then the US-UK-NATO is determined to do two things:
1. Prevent Europe integrating its economy with Russia through dependence on its energy
2. Preventing a viable alternative to Dollar hegemony emerging.

It's all very well for others to argue that there's nothing they can do about it but past experience is to my mind proof positive that that is NOT the way Guido Preparata's 'Anglo-American Fraternities' (a novel way of describing the principle and interwoven deep state players in both countries) see things. They certainly see the carnage of both world wars and assorted wars since as success of sorts and I don't see the evil inherent in that mindset changing anytime soon. The only thing likely to derail the policy is a series of events leading to a recognisable fait accompli. Those embrionic events will be (in fact are) up against the most formidable combined intel-military capabilities in history which will be FULLY employed to frustrate them.

This is how Preparata closes his preface to Conjuring Hitler:

So the West has to think again to think, in fact, that there is something far worse than Nazism, and that is the hubris of the Anglo-American fraternities, whose routine is to incite indigenous monsters to war, and steer the pandemonium to further their imperial aims.

And here's a new article by Finian Cunningham: US war plan for Europe and Russia

The first I agree with completely; the second I give considerable credence to

[Paul Rigby]

I just can't believe the the US has not seen and gamed this though. Are they REALLY that stupid?

[video=youtube_share;kdPkaCTdxBU]http://youtu.be/kdPkaCTdxBU[/video]

[David Guyatt]

And here's a new article by Finian Cunningham: US war plan for Europe and Russia

The first I agree with completely; the second I give considerable credence to

I found the article to be very thought provoking Peter, and it makes a strong case too for the US blackmailing Europe to remain in the NATO fold or otherwise it starts another European war. Blighty's financial clout would crumble without dollar hegemony I suspect, and that would explain why they would go along with such a scenario.

It's a rather chilling outline of real politik eh.

[David Guyatt]

I just can't believe the the US has not seen and gamed this though. Are they REALLY that stupid?

[video=youtube_share;kdPkaCTdxBU]http://youtu.be/kdPkaCTdxBU[/video]

An interesting scenario, I thought.

This was first published in October 2012, and the price of gold had hit a high of $1,790 an ounce. By June of 2013, the price had plummeted by about one third, to just over $1,200 an ounce. This clearly was a manipulated decline in the price of gold by the US. Today it's closer to $1,300 an ounce.

[Peter Presland]

And here's a new article by Finian Cunningham: US war plan for Europe and Russia

The first I agree with completely; the second I give considerable credence to

I found the article to be very thought provoking Peter, and it makes a strong case too for the US blackmailing Europe to remain in the NATO fold or otherwise it starts another European war. Blighty's financial clout would crumble without dollar hegemony I suspect, and that would explain why they would go along with such a scenario.

It's a rather chilling outline of real politik eh.

Chilling indeed.

I have no doubt that the US-UK collaboration will hold and that there are competent power-brokers in France, Germany and Russia who believe so too. Whether that applies to the current crop in Germany is perhaps moot, beholden as they are are to their occupiers' diktat, but Putin's advisors certainly see things quite clearly.

That is what I meant by Germany being set up for a re-run (continuation??) of the 20th century world wars a few posts ago. My hope is that Marx's oft quoted 'Bonapartism' that 'history repeats first as tragedy then as farce' may hold because the 2nd world war was certainly tragedy - and on a truly monumental scale for both Russia and Germany.

Europe is fast approaching a crunch choice. It will come down to either a long-overdue accommodation with Russia, with the US-UK manoeuvrings playing out as Marx's farce; or a continuation/rerun of WW's I and II the most probably outcome of which is just too horrific to contemplate. I know which is preferable in humanitarian terms and the future of the planet, but fear the worst.

[Peter Presland]

I just can't believe the the US has not seen and gamed this though. Are they REALLY that stupid?

[video snipped]

An interesting scenario, I thought.

This was first published in October 2012, and the price of gold had hit a high of $1,790 an ounce. By June of 2013, the price had plummeted by about one third, to just over $1,200 an ounce. This clearly was a manipulated decline in the price of gold by the US. Today it's closer to $1,300 an ounce.

Yes, interesting speculations. David is the gold expert here but I have no doubt that, regardless it's still official 'barbarous relic' status, it remains a key element of the global financial system. The issue of Germany's attempt to repatriate its physical gold has gone quiet again but it's still bubbling away. This article, 'Boozing with Ben', by Michael Colhaze is a hilarious satire of the issues involved.

Hilarious it may be but it references some serious food for thought too for example this from from Alexander Dugin (a major behind-the-scenes academic Putin advisor):

Germany is an occupied country run by a foreign power. The Americans (i.e. Neocons) exercise real control. Germany's own political elite is not free. As a result of this situation Berlin cannot act for the good of the country, as it should. In fact, at the present time Germany is being governed against her own best interests

[Magda Hassan]

Russia free to suspend NATO transit to Afghanistan across its territory - official

14:16 April 4, 2014 Interfax

NATO's decision to suspend cooperation with Russia gives Moscow the right to suspend NATO transit to Afghanistan across Russian territory, Federation Council Defense and Security Committee Chairman Viktor Ozerov said.
"NATO is transporting armaments, military hardware and servicemen to Afghanistan across our territory. If our cooperation comes to a halt, we will have the right to suspend this transit, and the alliance will have to find other routes," Ozerov told Interfax on Wednesday.
He recalled that the NATO transit to Afghanistan was based on bilateral agreements with France, Italy, the United States, Germany and some other countries.
"The NATO pullout from Afghanistan will begin soon and the alliance will have to find routes bypassing our territory. Cooperation always implies mutual interests," Ozerov said.
In his opinion, Russia won't lose from the halt of cooperation.
"First of all, that cooperation was advantageous for the alliance. In fact, there were nothing more than declarations of cooperation," he stressed.


NATO has always been holding its own policy, for instance, in the expansion towards Russian borders and the deployment of missile defense systems, he said.
"The goals and tasks were ambitious, for instance, in this year's cooperation program. However, if we look into the previous years, we will see that the intentions were implemented in secondary programs, such as mine clearing operations in Afghanistan, the deterrence of drug trafficking and homemade bombs. At the same time, no progress was made on the keynote issue, missile defense, in the previous years and NATO ignored the Russian opinion," Ozerov said.
This is not the first time NATO suspended cooperation with Russia; the same happened in August 2008 when Russia defended its citizens in South Ossetia, he continued.
"Back then the NATO foreign ministers decided to review relations with Russia. The relations were frozen but the freeze did not last for long," Ozerov said.
This is no more than an idle threat, Ozerov opined. "I think NATO will revise its decision very soon, as soon as passions about Ukraine calm down, and we will go back to dialogue and partnership," he said.
Russia has invariably demonstrated its wish to develop relations with the alliance, "but it has always been a one-way road. They listened to our proposals and initiatives but nothing more. NATO continued to expand, incorporating other states and setting up bases in disregard of the Russian position," Ozerov underscored.
Russia joined the Partnership for Peace program in the early 1990s when its cooperation with NATO had just begun, he said.
"The interaction with NATO over the Bosnian situation was the most fruitful period of our cooperation. That was the only example," Ozerov added.
"Regardless of the position of the NATO administration, we are destined to cooperate because we live on the same continent and in the same space. Military activity of one side may have a direct influence on the security of the other side. We cannot help but view military unions of East European and Baltic states and military activity on their territories as a threat to our strategic security interests. Moreover, we will give an adequate response," Ozerov said.

Russia will take all security measures in response to NATO decision to reinforce its eastern borders>>>

http://rbth.com/news/2014/04/04/russia_f...35669.html